(3 / 5)
I enjoyed the audio version of The Lesson Plan, a debut by G J Prager.
Robert Klayton is a substitute high school teacher by day and a trainee private detective by night. When he meets Sheila, a fellow substitute teacher who is in need of a private eye, he gets excited at the prospect of having enough money to actually pay his rent. However getting involved with Sheila inevitably gets him into trouble… A LOT of trouble. He has to try and find a killer while keeping a bunch of bad guys and the cops off his tail.
Overall I found it to be quite well written, the story was engaging and it held my interest quite well.
However, the characters were a bit of a let down for me. In particular Robert, the main character. I just had a hard time reading (or listening in this case) about a character who made such absolutely stupid decisions at every point and had such minimal personal growth. Just when I thought I was gaining a little bit of respect for him, off he goes again and does something even more stupid and It frustrated me a lot. I understand that this was the way he was supposed to be, it was his personality, he isn’t a typical “good guy”. But it just didn’t work for me. I didn’t find his character very likeable. The female characters that Robert was associated with were all pretty shady also. As were his interactions with them. I hope that substitute teachers are not all like that!
I felt the plot opened with a bang, and then moved quite slowly until about half way when it picked up again. There was a lot of intricate description of non significant aspects of the story, which was not necessarily a bad thing, but I felt at times it was slightly overdone. I loved the old school ‘Rockford files’ type vibe going on. It was engaging and I wanted to know how the story developed and what happened to Robert and if he ever sorted himself out.
I enjoyed the descriptions of the places in the novel. Las Vegas, the desert, Los Angeles… All places I have never been but were well described in the novel.
Audio Version: The author narrated the book himself and I love that! Who better than to emphasise key points and phrases than the person who wrote it originally. I wish more authors would narrate their own books! G J Prager has a lovely accent and I really enjoyed listening to him narrate as Robert. However, at times I got a little confused about who was who and who was saying what because it was hard to differentiate between characters. Every character sounded the same, even the females. I think more of an emphasised change of key or roughness to his voice would have made a world of difference to the listener. However it was by no means a bad narration, I quite enjoyed it.
Overall thoughts:
It was a good mystery, and I enjoyed the audio version. I would be interested to read other books by this author.
Thanks to the author via Word Slinger Publicity for a copy of this audio book in exchange for my honest review.
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