We've been drinkin' whiskey for breakfast.

Rick Gordon is forty six, and going nowhere. His sole relative, an uncle, has recent!y died. His temporary job is about to end. He house sits the four storey apartment of his financially successful friend, Ian, who is nearly always somewhere else. And he has only one other friend, also known from childhood, Amanda, herself seemingly stuck in her life, who nags him about always choosing the wrong type of girlfriend (she's right) and who 'has zero interest in history, like everyone else'. Except it fascinates Rick. And he has a dog, inappropriately named Pippa (it's male), the sort that everyone thinks is sweet. Something in Rick's sorry life has to change.

In a box of his deceased uncle's old stuff, he find a mystery left for him to solve: three connected long past murders, never solved despite the vast number of police investigating at the time. Rick determines not only to solve the murders but make them the focus of a book he'll write. And as he and life move forward together, it comes to obsess him, when entering his dreams. Part late-in-life coming of age, part psycological, part mystery, romance, and doggy lovers heaven, as well as an unusual peek at unexpected historical artifacts, this book is an interesting read. The text is well written, the main protagonist is constantly traced and human, descriptions brief but very visual. Yet what appears at first to be the main focus, the crimes which Rick intends to solve, takes very second place to Rick himself. A strange book in many ways, not really one for the reader looking for a neat cold case murder mystery, however.

Finding Ridley is narrated skillfully by Alan Charlson. He breathes life into the main protagonists, gives each their own voices and reads the text with gentle emotion and understanding. A good choice to perform the book. My thanks to the rights holder, who, at my request, freely gifted me with a complimentary copy, via Audiobook Boom. The book was an easy and pleasant read, at times intriguing, holding the reader's attention with a promise of something which never really quite comes but is still worth the listen.

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