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The Best Crime Stories Ever Told
- Narrated by: Robin Bloodworth, Suehyla El Attar
- Length: 20 hrs and 55 mins
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The Best Crime Stories Ever Told
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Editor reviews
Being an acclaimed mystery writer herself, Dorothy L. Sayers knows a thing or two about what makes a story captivating. In this anthology of short fiction, Sayers compiles over 30 of the best mysteries from the early 1900s, a veritable golden age for the genre. Robin Bloodworth and Suehyla El Attar perform with a robust gusto, clearly reveling in these classic tales by such luminaries as Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, and H. G. Wells. Listeners will be thrilled by the many treasures unearthed in The Best Crime Stories Ever Told.
Summary
When acclaimed mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers first began compiling anthologies of the best crime stories in the 1920s and ’30s, the genre was in the flush of its first golden age. While it is hard to imagine today - after every possible mystery plot has been told, retold, subverted, and played straight again by hundreds of writers over nearly a century - in Sayers’s day there were still twists that had never been seen, and machinations of crime that would shock even jaded Jazz Age fans.
Now today’s fans of mystery and crime can experience a handpicked collection of over thirty of the most outstanding stories from this era, originally chosen by Sayers and newly introduced by Otto Penzler, a leading expert and connoisseur in the field of mystery literature. As a prolific writer of the genre, Sayers understood the difficulty of putting together a mystery that was not only sufficiently challenging (so that the solution was not immediately obvious to the listener), but also solvable without forcing the writer to cheat. That balance between opacity and solvability remains the greatest challenge of writing great crime stories - and these are some of the greatest.
Authors appearing in this collection include:
- Edgar Allen Poe
- Herman Melville
- H. G. Wells
- Wilkie Collins
- Stephen Crane
- J. S. Le Fanu
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What listeners say about The Best Crime Stories Ever Told
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Boof
- 20-02-17
The first book I've returned
The stories in this anthology my be interesting and entertaining but you can't get past the terrible supposedly English accent. If you like horror then this will fit the bill on that aspect!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- LARRYG
- 01-07-15
best crime stories ever told
many stories engaging but male narration (accents/characters) spoiled the experience. he's better in other works
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Breele81
- 04-02-24
Not for me book returned
The few stories I endured were fairly good but the narrations are awful. An American trying to perform an English accent doesn’t work well here. I found the false poshness irritating. The American pronunciation of many words with this strange posh attempt at an English accent was so distracting I have had to give in and return the book. I have tried to adjust to the idiosyncrasies for three hours but have succumbed to failure.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 29-02-24
Good selection of stories
Male narrator made some of it rather boring except for his appalling attempts at an English accent which were laughable, ranging from Birmingham to Australia with touches of South African and Cockney, apparently with a peg on his nose. Female narrator definitely better.
Varied collection of stories, many of which could have been better presented.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- dtt
- 08-04-24
Dreadful male reader
The male reader, who covers all but two stories, has an outlandish repertoire of accents His ‘neutral’ or upper class accent apes patrician Southern or Maine US pronunciation. For anyone neither English nor American, he wildly veers between offensively distorted generic ‘peasant’ and incomprehensible made-up dialects. All women simper. The female narrator, on the other hand, has a sparkling, clear, charming delivery.
The main reader’s annoying voice overwhelms the mostly excellent stories, though be warned that at least half of these ‘mysteries’ are ghost or other supernatural stories, not just Golden Age material. One, a harrowing description of sailors trying to survive a shipwreck, is neither a detective nor a ghost story- presumably included as a thriller.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- T. J. Gluckman
- 04-03-24
Awful accents by male spoil slow-moving tales
Ghastly accents by the male reader spoil many of the stories for my sensitive ears. The readers are actually good when they use natural voices
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 06-06-21
Unfortunate Narration
Unfortunately, Robin Bloodworth's attempt at a British accent is quite irritating (chewy American twang keeps poking through)
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- LM Meiland
- 23-11-13
Not great for British English speakers
What disappointed you about The Best Crime Stories Ever Told?
Sadly, even though the reader obviously put in a lot of effort, the accents and voices he used were terrible. All the Europeans sounded like bastardised Arnold Schwarzenegger and the British accents were painful. I'm giving it back. I couldn't get into a single story because I kept waiting for the dreadful voices.
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8 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- oc
- 09-12-15
Strange accents and really not that great stories.
I found it hard to listen to the story is mainly because the narrators are attempting an English accent that frankly is nothing like any English accent I've ever heard. It makes it extremely hard to concentrate on the story itself. I'm also kind of surprised that these stories are meant to have been pulled together by Dorothy Sayers and also I rate very highly, because they're really not very good: very run-of-the-mill Victorian/ Edwardian crime stories.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- JANE PRIOR
- 24-11-14
Disappointed with content and presentation
Would you try another book written by Dorothy L. Sayers (editor) or narrated by Robin Bloodworth and Suehyla El Attar ?
Hmm, whilst two of the stories were interesting and verging on intriguing, overall this book was a disappointment. I enjoy all sorts of crime and mystery fiction because there is a mystery to be solved. However, in this collection I was completely at a loss in many of the stories to work out what the mystery might me. I have given up trying to plough through the book having got to the half way point, but I will persevere at a later date because I have paid for the recording. I have to say though that given a choice I'd want my money back. If you like PDJames, Reginald Hill, Anne Cleeves, Nicci French, Ian Rankin or any of their contemporaries you probably won't like this collection.
So far I have only heard one story read by the female actor and it was well read. However, the male actor has his limitations. Whilst he can clearly tell a story well he is not good voices and at times I found that I was getting a little confused because the different characters were not distinctive enough from one another. In some of the stories the voices were quite dreadful.
Overall I think I have been generous giving 2 stars.
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1 person found this helpful