When Cicadas Cry

By: Caroline Cleveland

Narrated by: Adam Barr

Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

A high-profile murder case

A white woman has been bludgeoned to death with an altar cross in a rural church on Cicada Road in Walterboro, South Carolina. Sam Jenkins, a Black man, is found covered in blood, kneeling over the body. In a state already roiling with racial tension, this is not just a murder case: it's a powder keg.

A haunting cold case

Two young women are murdered on quiet Edisto Beach, an hour southeast of Walterboro, and the killer disappears without a trace. Thirty-four years later, the mystery remains unsolved. Could there be a connection to Stander's case?

A killer who's watching Stander takes on Jenkins's defense, but he's up against a formidable solicitor with powerful allies. Worse, his client is hiding a bombshell secret. When Addie Stone reopens the cold case, she discovers more long-buried secrets in this small town. Would someone kill again to keep them?

This novel is ideal for fans of mystery, suspense, and thrillers in the vein of Karin Slaughter's Pretty Girls and Stacy Willingham's A Flicker in the Dark, as well as for listeners who followed the high-profile Murdaugh murder trial, held in the same small town as in When Cicadas Cry.

©2024 Caroline Cleveland (P)2024 Dreamscape Media

Fun legal thriller

I liked the device of having the killer have chapters. I thought I had it figured out, but I was wrong! I think this would make a fun movie.

I love this

This book was very entertaining from start to finish. I loved the way the characters had different chapters.

Excellent book.

The narrator did a good job on all the characters. I think it was a very well written story with good characters and good story line.

Dripping with Spanish moss and drama…

The book is racially charged and gender maddening. It is realistic for its setting in South Carolina where life is almost always gentile until it is not. Well done!

Fun, interesting and good story!

I now live in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. This story resonates with what I have come to learn of this area and its complicated history. It’s a fun, modern, interesting and engaging story, which has a number of twists and turns. The occasional asides by the murderer, who keeps track of the investigation, is an interesting device by the author. The reader kept me engaged in the story.

Surprisingly good!

Maybe it’s because Walterboro was all over te news in 2023. Maybe it’s because I live in Walterboro. Or maybe it’s just because it’s a really good listen / story. Definitely a thumbs up for the story. Even more for the narrator. One of the best Audible narrators I have ever listened to

Loved that the setting was in my home town

Some language issue which I would of liked to not be there but overall I loved it

Predictable, Slow & Cliché

I've read this same story about a hundred times, and there was nothing new here. The characters were likeable, but it wasn't really character driven, and there wasn't a lot of character development beyond the worn-out trope of the man who is a commitment phobe because of his daddy issues and the girl who wants a ring and isn't going to wait around forever, but you know good and well by the end of the story, he will have had an epiphany that he's been such a fool and is ready to start a family ASAP. The rest was plot driven, but there wasn't much of a plot.

There was intentional misdirection that was so obviously misdirection that it was cringe inducing and then, to make matters worse, the cardinal sin of crime thriller/mystery stories: the protagonist or a loved one finds themselves in the clutches of the villain, and they have to keel them talking in order to buy time for rescue, thus giving the villain a full monolog in which to lay out their evil deeds, the why, the how, and the plan from here forward. There was a line that was the literal equivalent of a Scooby Doo, "If it wasn't for those meddling kids" cliché, and the villain gets to wrap things up nice and neat to do the work for the author that they either didn't do well enough throughout the book, or thought their audience was too dumb to understand. I stopped then because it's my pet peeve, and the one cardinal sin that I will always and forever DNF a book if that scene happens, regardless of how much I had been enjoying it to that point...and I hadn't been enjoying this one so much as just letting it be a time filler and background noise because the story didn't call for any brain activity whatsoever.

The author also beats the reader over the head with the fact that they see "both sides" of the political spectrum, which is fine that they are, but it was just overkill pointing it out over and over.

It wasn't very believable, either, when it came to the legal system.

I don't understand the high reviews of this book. I was expecting Where the Crawdads Sing caliber and got Nancy Drew set in modern day, which would be fine if I was 10...I just can't recommend this one at all. Maybe it's because I read too much and like being challenged and don't like the same story rehashed over again. It may appeal to some, but if you're looking for something new, don't bother.