One-Way Tickets

A Case for Willows And Lane Series, Book 2

By: Peter Grainger

Narrated by: Henrietta Meire

Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

When a local man, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, goes missing, his parents have good reason to be concerned. Emily Willows is a friend of the family and says that she knows just the person to find him - and, as Summer Lane soon points out, the fact that this also fits in with Emily's plan to set up her very own detective agency is surely just a fortuitous coincidence.

But it isn't long before the former detective inspector finds herself on a train heading back to London, and back into situations that she thought she had left behind. Some old acquaintances are renewed, and some difficult memories must be confronted as Lane searches for the missing soldier and discovers the shocking truth about what happened to him five years earlier.

©2018 Peter Grainger (P)2018 Tantor

Very good

Hope there is more Lane and Nick to come. Have really enjoyed ALL of Peter Grainger’s stories.

Excellent and engrossing

Better than the first in the series - characters are developed and the narrative unfolds with relaxed confidence.

Exhilarating story

I have always liked Grainger but only knew of his Lake Mysteries. I fell in love with this series and these wonen. The characters development is well rounded and the male character very vivid. And it is quite an adrenaline ride when it gets going. I couldn’t stop listening to

Mostly good with one annoying main character.

The Lane character is very interesting. The Willow character is overdone and it cave tiresome listening to parts with her involved.

I can’t wait to listen to more

I couldn’t take a break I just wanted to keep playing it like a movie you can’t stop watching

Better Than Book 1 In This Series

The Audible tag name for a three star rating is "Pretty Good" which pretty much sums up this installment in the Willows and Lane series.

Ms. Meire's voice is pleasant, and her voice acting is well-paced and nuanced. I've given a three star rating for performance because she creates little variation among the speaking voices for the various characters, thereby making it difficult to know who's talking until the speaker says enough that the content identifies the person.

"One-Way Tickets" is better than the first book ("Lane") in part because the gosh awful Willows character appears only briefly at the beginning of the novel and then in only a few, short conversations thereafter. Mrs. Willows is beyond annoying. Shallow, whining, nagging, priggish, prying and willfully ignorant, with as much common sense as the YouTube dolts who eat laundry detergent pods.

The plotting is also better here, with sufficient novelty to retain the reader's attention, though the resolution of each set piece is obvious, as in the first book. It's a fairly short book, so the good guys and the bad guys are fairly standard, perhaps even a bit cardboard. Irascible Scot. Trash talking thugs. Etc. (No spoilers.) Mr. Grainger's books are roughly 50% action and 50% psychological disquisition. If you dislike lengthy discussions of how characters feel and why they feel the way they do, then Mr. Grainger's books are probably not for you.

Not up to Smith

I absolutely loved this author's series featuring DC Smith, so I read the two books in the Willows and Lane series with high hopes. Unfortunately, they aren't anywhere near as satisfying or engaging.

This book in particular seems to be mainly a set-up for the author to showcase his views about the experiences of veterans and ex-police officers. While this topic is worthy and I gained empathy for these folks, that is not really what I look for when reading for pleasure. Also, Mrs. Willows, who contributed so much to the first book, got barely a walk-on role here. I enjoyed the relationship between Willows and Lane, so I found this a real disappointment.

If Smith appears again, I'm definitely in. For this series, sad to say I'm done.

Not bad

It’s not a poorly written book but I didn’t find the setup or characters very compelling. Narrator is good although I wish her male voices were deeper.

A decent second book

Yes, I gave it four and five stars, but I think some of the magic of the first book is lost.

Some of Grainger’s best writing

I’ve read most of this author’s stuff, and this is one of the most thoughtful and well written of the bunch.