Description:

Crime fiction obsessive Martin Reed is the proverbial butt of everyone's jokes. Working as a glorified accountant at Southern Toilet Supply and still living with his cantankerous mother, he has become resigned to the world in which he lives - the school bullies now pick on him in the workplace, women still spurn him and his arch enemy is now his supervisor. But then he arrives at work one morning to find the police on site. A co-worker has been brutally murdered and her body abandoned in a ditch. And the overwhelming evidence points to Martin - especially when he can't or won't admit that he has an alibi. When a second victim is found in the company bathroom, things really conspire against Martin. The one bright star on his otherwise bleak horizon is the beautiful and sympathetic Detective Anther Albada, but even she's beginning to have her doubts about his innocence. Could Martin be guilty? Or is he just misunderstood? ### From Publishers Weekly Who'd have thought that the disrespect and indignities Wayne Knight suffered as Newman on the *Seinfeld* series would have been just a warmup for the silly, tasteless and at times repugnant, racist and unfunny material that Slaughter has provided. The author's original audio novella focuses on murder suspect Martin Reed, an über-wimp who lives with his shrewish, nagging nightmare of a mother and who works at Southern Toilet Supply. His home life is an indication of Slaughter's originality; his occupation suggests the level of her humor. Knight, making his audio debut, gives the material his best, which is considerable. His familiar image also adds much needed dimension to Martin's flimsy construction. But the novella is so unnecessarily ugly and hopelessly lacking in either invention or humor one can only presume that the potential for *Martin Misunderstood* was, well, misunderstood. *(July)* Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ### Review "The undertone of violence is pervasive, even at quiet moments, amplifying Slaughter's equation of intimacy and menace and placing her squarely in the ranks of Cornwall and Reichs." -- *Publishers Weekly*