Audiobook Review: Drama Muscle (Nicky and Noah Mystery #2) by Joe Cosentino

It could be lights out for college theatre professor Nicky Abbondanza. With dead bodybuilders popping up on campus, Nicky, and his favorite colleague/life partner Noah Oliver, must use their drama skills to figure out who is taking down pumped up musclemen in the Physical Education building before it is curtain down for Nicky and Noah. Complicating matters is a visit from Noah’s parents from Wisconsin, and Nicky’s suspicion that Noah may be hiding more than a cut, smooth body.

You will be applauding and shouting Bravo for Joe Cosentino’s fast-paced, side-splittingly funny, edge-of-your-seat entertaining second novel in this delightful series. Curtain up and weights up!


Narrator: Chip Hurley
Listening Length: 6 hours and 6 minutes

Reviewer: Shee Reader


This is the second Nicky and Noah Mystery, and I didn’t know quite what to expect, since I had not read or listened to the first one.

Nicky and his life partner Noah are both professors in the drama department at the tiny campus college in Vermont. They have teamed up with the bodybuilding department (who knew such a thing existed? Not me!) to help produce an outstanding body building contest. Suddenly the contestants (and some faculty too) are dropping like flies, and Nicky always seems to be on hand with his over the top amateur sleuthing whenever a new dead body comes to light.

The long-suffering detective who was the happy recipient of Nicky’s “Help” in the first book is back again. There is a huge number of suspects for Nicky to snoop around and each and every one is like a larger than life caricature, so much so, that the descriptions are somewhat cartoony, but are none the worse for that.

How Nicky manages to fit in his teaching time, working out, popping vitamins, amateur detective work and taking part in his and Noah’s enthusiastic sex life I have no idea!

We are left hanging until the end for our ‘who dunnit?’ and the journey is magical.

What can I say about this audio book? It was fun, funny, cheeky, sassy, tongue-in-cheek, over the top and brilliant. The writing is so energetic and hilarious and the narration was awesome. Such good characterisation and an engaging tone. It was exhausting in the best possible way. If I had one tiny criticism, it would be that the book is so over the top that I had to be in the right frame of mind to listen to it, but really it was so much fun. Recommended!

I was given a free copy of the audio book in exchange for an honest review.