The Financial Lives of the Poets, by Jess Walter, B. Narrated by Jess Walter, produced by Harper Audio, downloaded from audible.com.

This is a funny and endearing book in some ways, but not enough of a mystery for me. Jess Walter is an extremely talented narrator of this book. He knew just how to demonstrate Matt Prior’s voice in this book. Matt is a journalist who wrote a column about finances and did well at investing for himself for a long time-even through the tech crash. But then he got arrogant. He quit his secure job at the newspaper where he had seniority, and started a little journal of his own which was to be financial advice done in blank verse. The journal failed, and he rushed to get his job back, but by then the paper was laying people off and he lost his job within a very few weeks. He and his wife, Lisa, had vastly over-spent. Matt, starting the magazine, and Lisa, trying to start an e-bay business which involved buying up collector toys, holding onto them for a few years until they came into their own as collector items, and then selling them. Their credit cards were maxed, their bills remained unpaid, and their house was six days away from foreclosure. Matt went to the convenience store for milk and met two young gang bangers, went with them to a party, and got high, which he hadn’t done for at least 15 years. He got the bright idea that he could get himself out of debt by buying pot and selling it to his friends, all reaching middle age and wanting to remember the good old days of sex, grass and rock and roll. But he doesn’t know what he’s doing and ultimately comes under the radar of the police. In the meantime his wife is having a facebook flirtation with her old highschool boy friend, and Matt is afraid he’ll lose her. This is a madcap adventure with no murders at all, how did this come to be classified as a mystery? It is probably best read as an audio book, and Jess Walter certainly knows how to narrate the character of his book.