Audible Summary
It's exhausting to listen to Whitney comment on rich people or educated people or lawyers or doctors or pretty much anyone who makes more than 40k a year in such disparaging and passive aggressive ways.
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Clare Corbett
Narrator
8.6.2025
Tedious Characters Who Lack Complexity
Volume 2. Books 4 thru 6
I have been contiuing on with Sally Rigby’s Cavendish and Walker crime series because it’s a very easy listen. It’s not because I think the series is some kind of incredible series that I just can’t stop listening to.
Cavendish and Walker is not Jack Logan, it is not Kim Stone, it’s not anything like that. The series is maybe closer to Helen Phifer’s Morgan Brookes series as far as being uncomplicated, incredibly annoying sometimes, and very formulaic and predictable in a cosy crime kind of way.
To be honest these all blend together and I couldn’t tell you specifically what each book was about. I’ll just talk about the overall feel for this volume of books.
- Book 4 – Lethal Secret
- Book 5 – Last Breathe
- Book 6 – Final Verdict
I enjoy the relationship between Whitney and George but individually they are very problematic and tedious to deal with. George is reminding me of Kim Stone or Heather Filson where there is something wrong with her mentally and emotionally and she doesn’t connect well with people. It’s not as simple as she’s too serious and too educated to do so, but there is a real disconnect between her feelings and everyone elses feelings.
Whitney is not an overly dramatic person, but George is absolutely cut off from her emotions 90% of the time in a way that Sally Rigby just calls “aloof” or “missing social cues”. I would say George is almost stoicesque but stoics have “emotional control”, which is different from having no real understanding of what emotions are relevant for certain situations.
George is described as being “academic”, she’s a University professor who lectures and submits academic papers to journals and stuff like that. Whitney is someone who did not go to university, something that we get reminded of CONSTANTLY because she has a serious hangup about her own lack of education compared to George. Whitney is INSANELY INSECURE to the point of annoyance. She is jealous of rich people, she thinks all academics are boring or robotic and don’t have feelings. It’s an incredibly limited view of the world and maybe this is the way Sally herself sees the world because why else would she write characters so incredibly shortsighted. People are way more complicated than that and being educated doesn’t turn someone into Data on Star Trek just as a lack of higher education doesn’t make someone a dramatic, emotional mess.
I get so tired of Whitney constantly going on and on about her lack of education or how George uses big words and “there you go again talking like a academic”. Really? What is “an academic”? I have friends who are PhDs that don’t talk or act like George. I also have friends who barely finished high school that know more words than me.
The way these characters are written is really lazy and devoid of any real thought of them as people beyond “George: highly educated, unemotional” and “Whitney: under educated cop, very emotional”. This is probably supposed to be like some kind of mismatched buddy cop show where each person has to learn how to get along with their partner who is very different from them … and that is sometimes funny and interesting to watch in the case of something like Sherlock or Wild Card, but not how it’s done here. In Cavendish and Walker it’s just George teaches Whitney to not be an overemotional and dramatic mess about everything and Whitney teaches George to act more like a human being. Like what the fuck?
If I had a friend who, everytime I used a word hey didn’t know, had something snarky to say like “oh I guess that’s a word only educated people use” or some shit, I would stop being friends with them immediately. If I had a friend who, everytime we went to someones house who clearly was wealthy they said something like “oh I guess I must be in the wrong profession”, I would also stop being friends with them immediately. Stuff like that all the damn time indicates that person has a COMPLEX and needs therapy to develop a better relationship with THEMSELVES and learn how to accept, and find value in, their place in the world. When you spend everyday of your life comparing yourself to other people it’s a real problem. When you spend all your time with your friend constantly harping on how they are and calling it “a joke” that’s also a huge problem.
I know what you’re about to say: Maybe they can help each other through their friendship. Yes maybe if both of them were self aware enough to realize that they actually need help and therapy … but they aren’t and maybe neither is Sally Rigby.
I have a friend who has a lot of stomach issues and food allergies and one time she asked me what I was having for lunch and I told her and she said “must be nice” … like what the fuck? What would you have me say? Am I supposed to feel bad that I can eat something and you can’t? Why are you asking if that’s what you want to say? That kind of passive aggressive, dyregulated, mentally fragile behavior is a huge red flag for other kinds of mental illness. People like that want to take out their despair and their problems on other people and it’s not healthy to be around.
Whitney is exactly this kind of person and when George gets upset Whitney pulls the “I was just joking” card which is so insanely annoying. George is left having to learn how to “accept Whitney’s sense of humor” but that is not something she should be forced to do. Whitney has PROBLEMS and she needs to work out her issues and not use George or anyone else as a punching bag for her own insecurities about her life. George on the other hand only seems to show emotion when she’s pissed off or irritated and the rest of the time she’s like ChatGPT or Data and comes at things detatched and clinical and overly-educated. That’s another whole problem as well.
See the thing about Kim Stone and Heather Filson is that they are HIGHLY AWARE that they are not functioning in a “normal” or even “socially acceptable” way as people. They have people around them to help support them but that aren’t there to try and change them. They have people around them who accept them, flaws and all, but they themselves also know that how they move through the world, how they feel – or don’t feel – isn’t the same as everyone else. But Kim and Heather also have complex reasons for how they have come to be who they are and those are way more complicated than simply “lacking education” or “having too much education” or “having wealthy absent parents” or “having to be a parentified child”.
Maybe Sally doesn’t know how to write well rounded or more complex characters … or maybe she sees the world in a truly black and white way and only writes what she knows … or maybe this is a book serious about two emotionally dysregulated, mentally fragile, and insecure people who both need therapy and probably shouldn’t be partners. I think I remember hearing an author’s note about how Sally wrote YA books before this and maybe she sees all people as some kind of mentally dysregulated teenager even though these are grown women? I really have no explanation.
It’s not fun to listen to these two behave the way they do. It’s not fun to listen to Whitney comment on rich people or educated people or lawyers or doctors or pretty much anyone who makes more than 40k a year in such disparaging and passive aggressive ways. She needs help and so does George.
Maybe Sally just hasn’t gotten around to making George or Whitney more complex. Maybe she never will.
Overall: 2.0 out of 5.0 stars
Narration: 5.0 out of 5.0 stars
