Buried Deep

A short story packed with drama. I enjoyed the listen, with a great narrator and an intriguing story plot. If you enjoy learning about buried skeletons, then give this a listen. Facing the truth can be one of the scariest things we as humans face.

Hannah was a Scandinavian bombshell who had just made her modelling breakthrough and was looking forward to a promising career. James recently finished Medical school and was about to embark on his surgical career. Hannah and James were young lovers, newly engaged, when Hannah disappeared on a drunken weekend camping jaunt with a group of friends. One of their friends, Patrick, had seen her walk out alone in the middle of the night in the direction of the beach. The rest of the friends were passed out cold in a drunken stupor. When Hannah never returned, it was presumed she had drowned as her T-shirt was found the next morning on the beach, near their campsite.

Skip ahead about 25 years, James has a successful orthopedic surgery and is show more a devoted husband and father. His wife, Maggie, is busy happily planning James’ 50th birthday celebration, and their daughter, Paige, has just gone off to college on a lacrosse scholarship. Maggie and Paige are chatting on the phone. Maggie explains that the catering is all arranged, and she is just wondering whether ordering a photo booth will be over the top, when she is surprised by a knock on the door. A police detective is looking for James. After Maggie explains that her husband is at his surgery, she asks if she can be of any help. The detective mentions that Hannah’s remains have recently been uncovered. Pangs of jealously surface at the mention of Hannah’s name – known to have been the true love of James’ life. Just to be clear, Hannah didn’t wash up on shore 25 years later but rather was found buried at a building site excavation several miles away from where the friends had been camping. Since victims of a drowning generally don’t bury themselves, a murder investigation is soon underway with James as the most obvious person of interest. Although clearly there in no solid evidence against him, the police are eager to solve the case and James soon finds himself being arraigned before a judge.

In the meantime, between planning a 50th birthday and trying to cope with a tsunami of social media notoriety, Maggie still manages to find the time to launch her own investigation to clear James’ name, enlisting the assistance of all his old camping buddies – much to the chagrin of her husband. Did any of them know or see anything that could help solve the mystery of Hannah’s death? As it turns out, yes they did. 3.5 rounded up

Buried Deep, a novella written by Margot Hunt, is an Audible Original, available free (no credits) to Audible and Audible Plus subscribers. Although not one of Hunt’s best, the story was good enough to hold my interest throughout. show less

Buried Deep by Margot Hunt is a suspenseful short story. I acquired this Audible Original as part of my Audible membership. Maggie Cabot is a devoted wife to her husband of twenty years. She is navigating her daily life as an empty nester since their daughter recently went off to college when the police show up on her doorstep. Her husband, James, is wanted for questioning when the body of his long ago girlfriend is discovered.

James was dating Hannah 25 years ago, when they went on a camping trip in the Florida Keys, with a group of friends. Hannah went missing in the middle of the night. The group of friends assumed she accidentally drowned in the ocean. Imagine the group’s surprise when her body is found having been buried instead. show more

Maggie immediately makes it her mission to conduct her own investigation into the murder to help clear the police’s suspicion surrounding her husband. For me, Maggie was pretty annoying in the beginning of this story. I’m not exactly sure what she thought she was going to accomplish since she didn’t know her husband or anyone in the group of friends at the time of Hannah’s death.

The story suddenly got more interesting. It turns out Maggie uncovered some pretty juicy details about the group members’ past. The ending was surprising, darker, and more twisted than I expected. I enjoyed the audiobook narration by Therese Plummer.

I have photos and additional information that I'm unable to include here. It can all be found on my blog, in the link below.
A Book And A Dog show less

Predictable noirish novella
Review of the Audible Original audiobook edition (Dec. 2019)

Probably due to Ebert's Law of the Economy of Characters, this short novella was fairly predictable from its early stages. The narration by Thérèse Plummer was excellent in all voices.

Buried Deep was one of the free Audible Original audiobooks for members for the month of December 2019.

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book that I got as a free Audible Originals through my Audible membership.

Audiobook Quality (4/5): The audiobook was well done and I have no complaints.

Story (3/5): Maggie is adjusting to her daughter leaving for college when a detective shows up at her house. The detective wants to talk to Maggie’s husband, James, about a young woman whose disappearance he was involved in over 20 years ago. Maggie tries to take things into her own hands and investigates on her own in order to help her husband’s case. It was an okay, but fairly typical, mystery type of story.

Characters (2/5): I didn’t enjoy or really like any of the characters in this story. Maggie bothered me a lot; she was very insecure show more and kept sticking her nose into other people’s business. I kept thinking how I always avoid people like Maggie as I read this. None of the other characters were very endearing either.

Setting (3/5): The majority of the story is set in a typical suburban neighborhood in Florida, nothing special.

Writing Style (3/5): Writing style of the story was fine. Hunter does a decent job of weaving a good mystery, I did think the ending felt rushed and a bit contrived.

Summary (3/5): Overall I could have not read this and been just fine. It was short, so I didn’t mind listening to it and it wasn’t horrible. However, I didn’t really like the characters and felt like the mystery was a bit too predictable. Personally I would skip it, but hey it was free and it didn’t completely suck….it helped me pass the time on my way into work. show less

I thought that the narrator was excellent.
Story itself is pretty good, although I do wish there had been more about the criminal side of it all.