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  • Black Leopard, Red Wolf

  • Dark Star Trilogy, Book 1
  • By: Marlon James
  • Narrated by: Dion Graham
  • Length: 24 hrs and 1 min
  • 3.9 out of 5 stars (226 ratings)
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Black Leopard, Red Wolf cover art

Black Leopard, Red Wolf

By: Marlon James
Narrated by: Dion Graham
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Summary

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James. 

Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter - and he always works alone. But when he is engaged to find a child who disappeared three years ago, he must break his own rules, joining a group of eight very different mercenaries working together to find the boy.

Following the lost boy's scent from one ancient city to another, into dense forests and across deep rivers, Tracker starts to wonder: who is this boy? Why has he been missing for so long? Why do so many people want to keep Tracker from finding him? And, most important of all, who is telling the truth and who is lying?

Drawing from vivid African history and mythology, Marlon James weaves a saga of breathtaking adventure and powerful intrigue - a mesmerising, unique meditation on the nature of truth and power.

©2019 Marlon James (P)2019 Penguin Audio

What listeners say about Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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  • T
  • 11-09-20

NAME OF THE WIND x PERFUME + MARMITE = INCREDIBLE!

This is quite simply an amazing book written with the kind of detail reserved only for fine embroidery. Like said embroidery, it is captivating from a distance and mesmerising up close. The descriptions, the world building, the depth of characters, the intensity, the pacing, the detail, the poetry, the wisdom, the Africaness, the penmanship - all the above are exquisite, exhilarating and beautifully balanced. This book is a 3 Michelin star experience and Marlon James is a Masterchef!

A word about the narrator Dion Graham because he absolutely smashed this!!!! His voice, his tone, his accent, his emotion, his dynamism really capture the characters in the book and made them live and breathe - especially the main character from whose perspective this book is written. Best book and narrator pairing to date!!!! A word of warning - this is book has so much detail that if you daydream for 30 seconds or more it’s easy to get lost. You’ll be using that skip back button quite a bit...lol...enjoy😉

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

In turn both beautiful and disgusting...

Where to begin?

This is dreamlike prose; bloody and gorgeous and obviously offensive to some. (It’s 2020 people. Read some Burroughs for Christ’s sake!!)

This reminds me of the Vorrh, China Mieville, Jeff vandermeer... it’s meandering but punctuated with enough jarring incidents to keep the listener riveted.

I had no issues with the narrator’s accent and genuinely thought it brought authenticity and flesh to the tale. Even the long train-of-thought monologues were gorgeous to listen to, if a bit head ache inducing at times.

The book is an experience, like a play, a journey. So visual.

It’s an adventure, but not in the overdone format of the hero arc; indeed by the end most messages and lessons are well up in the air for debate! It’s certainly unclear if who our “hero” is anyway.

Marlon James weaves African bush fairytales with nightmarish characters and head spinning imagery the whole way through.

Try it, if the audio book doesn’t work then give the novel a go.

Brutal, meandering, stunning.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Rambling story with exciting memorable characters

I enjoyed the characters and the narration more than the actual storyline which rambled on.
I wish the narrator researched the Yoruba words though
The most visceral reactions I got were in the scenes with the Bad Ibeji. My skin still crawls.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • w7
  • 20-02-19

Unable to listen

I find that another reviewer was spot on: the reader's fake Russian accent and overacted sense of drama and foreboding are unbearable. Will get the print version to read.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Awful Narration!

Why can't Audible use somebody from Africa, with a genuine African accent? The narrator's African accent was so fake. it was unintelligible. Just because somebody's black (in this case Afro-American) doesn't mean they all sound the same. Anymore than all white people sound the same. At best it's lazy of Audible and at worst it's borderline racist. I've noticed this is common with books written by authors of other nationalities. That said. I'm a Marlon James fan but I found this book so difficult to follow and the narrator certainly didn't help. As someone previously said. It's obsessed with genitals. Too much for my taste I'm afraid.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

African dark fantasy

A story set in a primal African world with shapeshifters, witches and black magic, Vivid and dreamlike. Not easy to follow. Great narrator.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

wonderful prose for a confusing/frustrating story

Fanatastic audio perfirmance helped get through this frustrating book. Confusing story pretty hard to get through and difficult to understand. felt almost like torture porn

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A total headfuck

Took me a while to really work out what was going on and work out the author's style. Glad I stuck with it but I am sure there are bits that went over my head

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

brilliant book and read beautifully.

The story itself really winds you round and round, making sure you are constantly questioning the characters and allowing you many different points of view at many different times throughout the story

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Amazing

Overall amazing.

The Narration was amazing. The writing superb.

The characters were beautiful and tragic. An absolutely fresh and exciting listen.

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1 person found this helpful