The Dead Room

By: Robert Ellis

Narrated by: Jim McCance

Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

A young woman is found, brutally murdered and left on gruesome display in the "safety" of her own home. The atrocity kicks off an investigation into a bizarre string of increasingly disturbing murders, all believed to be perpetrated by someone of unprecedented savagery and cunning. As the city's panic rises, civil attorney Teddy Mack is thrown headlong into the grisly homicide case - and into a world of dirty politics and corrupt justice, where deceptions are as deadly as the killer's twisted secrets. Now, another woman is about to meet the same horrific fate as the others.

To end a madman's reign, Teddy must enter his maze - a place of unimaginable terror and shocking revelations.

With his second thriller, L.A. Times best-selling author Robert Ellis delivers an explosive listen with full-blown characters caught in a world stacked with twists and turns and an emotional intensity that burns white-hot.

The Dead Room serves as the introduction to City of Fire and remains a truly one of a kind find.

©2002-2014 Robert Ellis (P)2014 Robert Ellis

Good read

Enjoyed the dead room however I am still puzzled by the ending. I did not get the closure I felt was owed the readers.

Very good story

I don't think this book is that far from the truth. I'd say things like this go on a lot more then we know. It's worth the time to listen.

Good story. Poor narrator

The story is worth tolerating the very poor narration. Lots of twists, turns and surprises

Kept me interested

Great story. Dark themes and gruesome .. But very enjoyable. Makes me want to read/listen to more books by the author.

12 hours and that's it?

The narration started out very good, but certain characters were hard to understand after a while and did not contribute to this complicated story. This book was not my kind of entertainment.

twist & turn

lots of twists & turns in this. It was exciting & The good parts were good! lots of imagination and intense! Some of it was kind of slow but I'm not sure if it was the book or if the narrator was throwing me off a bit in some parts....like in the "dull" parts the narrator was dull but I maybe that's how it was supposed to be

Suspenseful

Great crime novel. Loved the twisted end. Story line easy to follow and the pieces fell in place at the right times.

Page turner

While this story contains some elements that are cliche, I enjoyed it very much. Loved the ending! I want more by this author.

very long

We listened to this on a road trip. It took a long time to finish, but it was a good story.

Young naive hero led around by the nose

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I would have preferred a smarter hero. Somehow to me this felt like a book that was written considerably earlier than 2012.

If you’ve listened to books by Robert Ellis before, how does this one compare?

Haven't.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

Not sure. He just didn't click with me.

Was The Dead Room worth the listening time?

Yes.The serial killer was unique and diabolically evil. I was horrified at his control of the plumbing in the basement. Oscar Holmes is such an easy victim to frame for a horrific murder. One look at him and you were convinced he was guilty, even without blood all over his hands and his skills as a butcher and his previous interaction with the victim....and on and on. One of my favorite parts was when Teddy discovered Oscar's paintings and thus revealed a different side of him. Teddy was under a lot of pressure. He had big law school loans to pay off & couldn't afford to lose his job. He was bright and a hard worker had a future--especially important to him after a childhood in the shadow of his father's disgrace (unjustly blamed for the murder of his partner). But when Teddy's boss Barnett tapped him to handle the murder case, Barnett kept important information from Teddy, not really wanting him to do a good job. Teddy, on the other hand, was determined to work hard at every assignment. To make matters worse, D.A. Andrews was grandstanding for the public --especially since law professor William Nash was contending Andrews had an innocent man executed, so the case was an even bigger hot potato, especially after Nash gets pulled into the Holmes case. On the other hand, Teddy did some incredibly stupid things. Getting involved with ADA Powell was an obvious conflict. Being lured to out-of-the-way spot where he finds another body makes the D.A. suspicious of him. (Why does he have to meet the witness for his other case in such an isolated spot? Never heard of coffee-shops?!) His boss Barnett is run over in his own driveway and the police seem to do a putrid job of investigating but Teddy finds and follows a trail of footprints the police didn't notice(?!) but does nothing to document this evidence; then he finds a very unusual shot glass, and is ambushed, & loses it. In retrospect, the book had a lot of really exciting bits, such as when Teddy inadvertantly brought danger to his own (mother's) backyard and when Teddy was followed to yet another isolated area & his car was sabotaged & went thru the ice....and he had to break into a house to avoid hypothermia... I just realized I may know why I felt as if the book was written in an earlier era....I grew up in PA so the place names are familiar from my chiildhood... e.g., a creek that is a tributary of the the Schuylkill River ran by my childhood home....maybe the names familiar to me from my childhood gave me that impression... In remembering more of the details about this book I've gone back & raised the story from three stars to four because there were a lot of really interesting happenings. And it was well plotted. I guess the plot would have been a lot less intricate with a hero smart enough to cut thru all the subterfuge faster.

Any additional comments?

Think I covered everything - good & bad - above.