Blog Tour: Audiobook Review of Cut Short by BD Spargo
Today I am helping end the blog tour for Cut Short by BD Spargo. This is a debut novel crime thriller/police procedural and the second in the series is also available now!
Book Description:
Detectives can’t bury their mistakes, murderers can.
DCI Liam Doyle is haunted by the demons from his past and the challenges of the present: a broken marriage, a tarnished reputation, and a troubled young son who needs him. He’s newly moved out of south London – and out of his comfort zone.
When a murdered woman is found at a Lancashire beauty spot in his new patch. Doyle is tasked with finding her killer, along with his new detective sergeant, Anna Morgan.
As the investigation progresses, it becomes clear that things are not as they seem. A clever killer has created a complex web of deceit and is always one step ahead of Doyle … and the bodies are mounting up. Is the past the key to unlocking the present? When the stakes get higher, Doyle’s need to find the killer becomes personal and the detective is plunged into a desperate race against time. Will Doyle succeed before he has another dead body on his conscience?
Played out across the rugged Lancashire landscape, Cut Short is a gripping crime thriller layered with plot twists and sprinkled with humour. This fast-paced novel, the first in a series featuring DCI Liam Doyle, will have readers on the edge of their seats.
If you have enjoyed books by authors such as Ian Rankin, Stuart MacBride, JD Kirk and Alex Smith, you won’t want to miss Cut Short.
Cut Short
Series: DCI Liam Doyle #1
Author: BD Spargo
Narrator: Aubrey Parsons
Audio Published: February 6, 2026
Audiobook: 9 hours 43 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: March 8-14, 2026
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars
Jessica’s Review:
Cut Short is a gritty crime thriller/police procedural taking place ‘across the pond’ in Lancashire, England. I enjoyed this one and the fact that this is a debut novel is impressive! Cut Short takes place in present day with flashbacks to 1996 and 1999. Animal lovers be on the lookout for the deaths of two animals: I’ll first mention there is a death of a rabbit, which is just a minor two sentences. A larger warning in regards to beginning of the novel as we have a very brutal murder of a dog. It is necessary to the story and I was prepared for an animal death but wasn’t expecting what we got.
As this is the first novel in the series, we meet DCI Liam Doyle and he is just starting his job in a new location and what a start: a body! And things are just not what they seem. We also meet many more characters which a reader may or may not like. I like DS Anna Morgan and adore Pathologist Doctor Vedhika Gupta! Gupta is my favorite character! We get to know these characters along with Doyle and we get to see into his past and personal life, which is far from perfect. These characters all came off as ‘real’ to me.
As the case grows and more is discovered; the reader goes along with Doyle to work to solve the case. The story speeds up and I was really wanting to know how it was going to end! Cut Short is a fast paced novel that you don’t really want to put down and stop listening. The narrator Aubrey Parsons did a great job! He became DCI Doyle for me.
In addition to the grittiness of the story, we also get some humor in the novel to lighten the mood at times. I was surprised to find myself laughing at times with the humor. Now remember, this is a British author, so we have British humor!
Fortunately, the second in the series is available now in kindle and paperback. I’m optimistic that the second will be available on audio soon!
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Audible US
Amazon UK
Audible UK
About the Author:
Fast approaching fifty; without enough money for a sports car, BD Spargo decided to express his mid-life crises by turning to crime …
Thankfully for pretty much everyone this meant writing crime fiction rather than anything more nefarious. Originally from London, he spent his early career working in television and theatre including on the Ruth Rendall Mysteries broadcast on ITV.
A life changing accident necessitated retraining and a change of direction going on to work in mental health services. This culminated in ten years managing a groundbreaking forensic psychiatric service. He now lives in Lancashire with his family and is getting acclimatised to the rain.
Contact BD:
Website
Bluesky
X @BDSpargo
Instagram @BDSpargo
See the whole blog tour:
Audiobook Review: Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six by Lisa Unger
Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six
Author: Lisa Unger
Narrator: Vivienne Leheny
Published: November 8, 2022
Audiobook: 12 hours 20 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: November 8, 2022
Jessica’s Rating: 2 stars
Book Description:
Three couples rent a luxury cabin in the woods for a weekend getaway to die for in this chilling locked-room thriller by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger.
What could be more restful, more restorative, than a weekend getaway with family and friends? An isolated luxury cabin in the woods, complete with spectacular views, a hot tub and a personal chef. Hannah’s loving and generous tech-mogul brother found the listing online. The reviews are stellar. It’s his birthday gift to Hannah and includes their spouses and another couple. The six friends need this trip with good food, good company and lots of R & R, far from the chatter and pressures of modern life.
But the dreamy weekend is about to turn into a nightmare. A deadly storm is brewing. The rental host seems just a little too present. The personal chef reveals that their beautiful house has a spine-tingling history. And the friends have their own complicated past, with secrets that run blood deep. How well does Hannah know her brother, her own husband? Can she trust her best friend? And who is the new boyfriend, crashing their party? Meanwhile, someone is determined to ruin the weekend, looking to exact a payback for deeds long buried. Who is the stranger among them?
Jessica’s Review:
Secluded Cabin is yet another thriller that intrigued me from the description, but ended up not working for me. I never know when this is going to happen and this was my first novel by Unger, so I am willing to give her another chance, as I do with novels like this that don’t really end up working for me.
I just love the idea of the secluded cabin setting; in fact my husband and I have stayed at a few cabins and I love being out in the woods. Alone. With hopefully no one close by! I love it so much that I freak myself out! But I LOVE IT! We even have a particular movie we will watch every time we stay in a cabin, and I frighten myself out every time we watch it!
For me, this novel fell victim for me because it was like it was made of two stories in one: the secluded cabin story and then a second story dealing with DNA and family but they do end up coming together. I was not interested in the DNA story, I just wanted a secluded cabin where people were being watched and killed! LOL. There were also too many characters for me to keep straight as I listened to the audiobook. There were also too many povs to go with the large cast of characters.
Maybe the next novel I read by Unger will work for me! I have several of hers on my TBR pile!
Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Audiobook Review: Travel by Bullet by John Scalzi (The Dispatcher #3)
Travel by Bullet
Series: The Dispatcher #3
Author: John Scalzi
Narrator: Zachary Quinto
Published: September 1, 2022
Audiobook: 3 hours 43 minutes
Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Listened To: October 13-15, 2022
Jessica’s Rating: 5 stars
Book Description:
The world has changed. Now, when someone is murdered, they almost always come back to life—and there are professionals, called “dispatchers,” who kill in order to save lives, to give those near the end a second chance. Tony Valdez is a dispatcher, and he has never been busier.
But for as much as the world has changed, some things have stayed the same. Greed, corruption and avarice are still in full swing. When Tony is called to a Chicago emergency room by an old friend and fellow dispatcher, he is suddenly and unwillingly thrown into a whirlpool of schemes and plots involving billions of dollars, with vast caches of wealth ranging from real estate to cryptocurrency up for grabs.
All Tony wants to do is keep his friend safe. But it’s hard to do when friends keep secrets, enemies offer seductive deals, and nothing is ever what it seems. The world has changed… but the stakes are still life and death.
Jessica’s Review:
Scalzi is back with a third Dispatcher novel and Quinto narrates again! And this one is a recent release too! This new novella seems even more real because the pandemic is brought into play and affected this world as well as ours! It affected a dispatcher’s job too, and we get to see this mentioned. And wearing a mask is commonplace in this world as it can be in our world, with people choosing to wear masks whenever they are out.
The world is much darker too with the rich/elite/villains taking advantage of ‘murder’ and the 99.9% chance of coming back by ‘traveling by bullet’, hence the title of this new novella. This world has so much more greed, corruption, and death manipulation than what we have now and if this actually happened I can see our world becoming like Tony’s world.
These novellas are fast paced, and enjoyable! You like Tony, but is he as good as we think? Quinto is the perfect Tony and I really want to see these stories play on tv with him starring!
I hope Scalzi gives us more Dispatcher novellas! This series is one to make you think a lot about this world, and Scalzi has done a brilliant job of bringing us into it.
Purchase Links:
Please Note: This new release is only currently available as an Audible original.
Amazon US
Amazon UK