The Violated, Bill Pronzini
The Violated, Bill Pronzini
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
Club: $9.97

Synopsis

Bill Pronzini is crime-writing royalty. His more than eighty published novels have won or been nominated for Edgar, Hammett, Anthony, Shamus, and Macavity awards—a clean sweep of the crime fiction award field—and received rave reviews from critics. He crafts masterful stories, often from multiple perspectives, in which the human condition is on full display. The Violated is no exception. In Echo Park, in the small town of Santa Rita, California, the mutilated body of Martin Torrey is found by two passersby. A registered sex offender, Torrey has been a suspect in a string of recent rapes, and instant suspicion for his murder falls on the relatives and friends of the women attacked. Police chief Griffin Kells and detective Robert Ortiz are under increasing pressure from the public and from a mayor demanding results in a case that has no easy solution. Pronzini cleverly unfolds the case through alternating perspectives—Martin Torrey’s wife, caught between her grief and the fear her husband was guilty; the outraged husbands of the women violated; the enterprising editor of the local paper; the mayor concerned most with his own ratings; the detectives, often spinning in circles—until a surprising break leads to a completely unexpected conclusion. The Violated is Bill Pronzini at the height of his storytelling powers.

About Bill Pronzini

Bill Pronzini has won numerous awards, including the 2008 Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and the Hammer Award from the Private Eye Writers of America.

About Traber Burns

Traber Burns worked for thirty-five years in regional theater, including the New York, Oregon, and Alabama Shakespeare festivals. He also spent five years in Los Angeles appearing in many television productions and commercials, including Lost, Close to Home, Without a Trace, Boston Legal, Grey’s Anatomy, Cold Case, Gilmore Girls, and others.

About Rachel Fulginiti

Rachel Fulginiti is an audiobook narrator and a voice-over artist who has worked with companies such as Chrysler, Target, McDonalds, and eHarmony. She is a graduate of the Meisner Program at the School for Film and Television in New York City.

About Keith Szarabajka

Keith Szarabajka has appeared in many films, including The Dark Knight, Missing, and A Perfect World, and on such television shows as The Equalizer, Angel, Cold Case, Golden Years, and Profit. Szarabajka has also appeared in several episodes of Selected Shorts for National Public Radio. He won the 2001 Audie Award for Unabridged Fiction for his reading of Tom Robbins’s Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates and has won several Earphones Awards.

About Mark Ashby

Mark Ashby has recorded over three hundred books for the Library of Congress, including works by Hemingway, Dostoyevsky, and Dan Brown. He received the AFB Scourby Award for nonfiction narration and was nominated for a Torgi Award. He also directed and starred in the full-cast audio play Flesh and Blood, and his stage acting credits include The Odd Couple, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Seven Year Itch, The Nerd, and Boeing Boeing. Also, as a member and head writer of comedy troupe Those Guys, he has penned a semi-autobiographical play called How to Make a Baby.

About Tanya Eby

Tanya Eby is a novelist and an audiobook narrator who has earned several AudioFile Earphones Awards and been nominated for the Audie Award. She has a BA degree in English language and literature and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Southern Maine.

About Kate Rudd

Kate Rudd, actress and Earphones Award–winning narrator, has appeared in several independent films and shorts, as well as in multiple episodes of the television show Perks. As an audiobook narrator she has been a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration.

About Joe Barrett

Joe Barrett, an actor and Audie Award and Earphones Award–winning narrator, has appeared both on and off Broadway as well as in hundreds of radio and television commercials.

About Hillary Huber

"Hillary has recorded close to 700 audiobooks spanning many genres.  She is a multiple Audie Award finalist, multiple Earphone Award winner, Voice Arts Awards winner and one of Audiofile Magazine's best voices.  Hillary has a BA in English Literature and is a voracious reader and listener.  Likes: yoga, hip hop dancing, baking sourdough, bourbon. Dislikes: liver. Raised in conservative Connecticut and hippy Hawaii, Hillary now splits her time between Santa Monica and New York.   Most of that time is in a 4x4 padded room. Er...booth. Her superpower is reciting the alphabet backwards. Created with WordToHTML.net trial."

About Elizabeth Wiley

Elizabeth Wiley, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, is a seasoned actor, dialect coach, and theater professor. In addition to her growing portfolio of audiobooks, her voice can be heard in The Idea of America, Colonial Williamsburg’s virtual learning curriculum; in Paul Meier’s e-textbook Speaking Shakespeare; and modeling US-English on one of the world’s top language-learning products.

About Caroline Shaffer

Caroline Shaffer is an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator. A former company member at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for nineteen years, she received an MFA from the American Conservatory Theater.

About Emily Sutton-Smith

Emily Sutton-Smith has appeared in several films, including The Butterfly Effect 3 and Nevermore, as well as several television programs. An award winning audiobook narrator, she has read titles by Iris Johansen, Kendra Elliot, and Shéa MacLeod, among others.

About Johnny Heller

Johnny Heller, winner of numerous Earphones and Audie Awards, was named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile magazine in 2019. He has been a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award winner from 2008 through 2013 and he has been named a top voice of 2008 and 2009 and selected as one of the Top 50 Narrators of the Twentieth Century by AudioFile magazine.

About Emily Woo Zeller

Emily Woo Zeller is an Audie and Earphones Award–winning narrator, voice-over artist, actor, dancer, and choreographer. AudioFile magazine named her one of the Best Voices of 2013. Her voice-over career includes work in animated film and television in Southeast Asia.

About R. C. Bray

R. C. Bray is an award-winning audiobook narrator with over 180 titles to his credit. Besides winning five AudioFile Earphones Awards, he won the prestigious Audie Award in 2015 for Best Science Fiction Narration and has been an Audie Award finalist seven times. He has been a finalist for the Voice Arts Award, and in 2014, his narration earned a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award. He is also an accomplished producer and voice-over artist, and his voice can be heard in countless TV and radio commercials.


Reviews

Goodreads review by SnoopyDoo on September 28, 2017

This book was okay. Just okay not great but also not bad. As mentioned in the blurb it touches in the subject of rape so that may me a trigger to some readers. This book also have multiple POV which I thought was great for this book and story. The story was entertaining and kept......more

Goodreads review by Eileen on June 02, 2017

Well I finished it. That's about all to say. While the story was somewhat interesting and I liked the multiple perspectives, the writing was at times juvenile. "my boyfriend is a stud" the kids name was Timmy, etc. not the best or worst I've read.......more

Goodreads review by Valerie on December 09, 2018

This novel by Bill Pronzini, is a standalone novel about the murder of a convicted sex offender who had undergone psychiatric treatment for voyeurism in Ohio. After time in a mental hospital, his doctors declared him cured, and so he moves to California to live with his wife. Unfortunately, Martin T......more

Goodreads review by Kathleen on March 16, 2017

Bill Pronzini is the author who kindled my interest in modern crime fiction. His long running series about the Nameless Detective is getting a little long in the tooth so I was pleased to see that he had written another stand alone novel. Presenting multiple points of view is often attempted by writ......more

Goodreads review by Barbara on September 14, 2019

VERY good - the old Bill Pronzini that I have read and loved for umpteen years. Can’t believe he is the same author who writes the Quincannon and Carpenter series - the difference between this book and those is like night and day. This is not your usual run of the mill detective story, no implausible......more


Quotes

“The Shamus Award–winning Pronzini delivers a masterly stand-alone novel.” Library Journal (starred review)

“This is a psychological novel dressed up in a thriller suit, which means the teeth are showing, and Pronzini’s skill keeps things moving. Another satisfying tale from a crime master.” Booklist

“A truly prismatic view of many conflicts that have divided the troubled community.” Kirkus Reviews