The Authorities by Scott Meyers (Audiobook)

Published by Rocket Hat Industries. Read by Luke Daniels. Produced by … Scott Meyer? (Presumably the author paid Luke Daniels to make the audiobook.)

Sinclair Rutherford is a young Seattle cop with a taste for the finer things. Doing menial tasks and getting hassled by superiors he doesn’t respect are definitely not “finer things.” Good police work and bad luck lead him to crack a case that changes quickly from a career-making break into a high-profile humiliation when footage of his pursuit of the suspect—wildly inappropriate murder weapon in hand—becomes an Internet sensation.

I’m pretty sure I picked up this book because it was another Scott Meyer/Luke Daniels collaboration. I found the Magic 2.0 series juvenile but also very funny.

Listen time: ~10 hours, 1/18-1/20/2018.

Very much like the Magic 2.0 books, the story and writing of The Authorities did not do much for me, but it is brilliantly read by Luke Daniels. I am very biased though because anything that Luke Daniels reads becomes 1000% better in my personal opinion. The Authorities is basically a long series of absurdly comedic situations (Scott Meyer’s trademark) loosely tied together into a police procedural format. It’s a fun listen, that’s about it.

I would recommend the audiobook solely because it has a lot of funny moments, and Luke Daniels is perfect for this kind of humor. I’m not sure I would recommend *reading* the book, though. There were long stretches where I checked out and didn’t pay much attention. For example, I didn’t care a whit about the mystery of whodunnit. The victim and the murderer just didn’t matter. But I enjoyed the hijinks that occurred along the way of solving the crime. I guess that’s another way of saying that the characters were far more interesting than the plot. It had a bit of an absurdist A-Team vibe to it.

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