A Deadly Thaw cover art

A Deadly Thaw

Inspector Francis Sadler, Book 2

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A Deadly Thaw

By: Sarah Ward
Narrated by: Julia Anthony
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About this listen

It's 2004. In Bampton, Derbyshire, Lena Fisher is arrested for suffocating her husband, Andrew.

Spring 2016: A year after Lena's release from prison, Andrew is found murdered in a disused mortuary. Who was the man Lena killed 12 years ago, and why did she lie about his identity? When Lena disappears, her sister, Kat, follows a trail of clues delivered by a teenage boy.

Sarah Ward's second novel confirms her place as one of the UK's most exciting new crime writers.

©2016 Sarah Ward (P)2016 W.F. Howes Ltd Crime Fiction Mystery Police Procedural Suspense Thriller & Suspense Fiction Crime

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Critic reviews

"The most engaging debut I have come across in a long time." (Yrsa Sigurdardottir, praise for In Bitter Chill)
"A twisted, skilful and entirely intriguing mystery." (Quentin Bates, praise for In Bitter Chill)
All stars
Most relevant
the narration was dreadful. pronunciation was bad and sounded like a computer was reading it

awful narration

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I enjoyed the first book in this series and was looking forward to this one, but the narration is torturous. It’s like the narrator has never read out loud before. Or maybe even read before. So many common words misread. Relevation instead of revelation just one of about 10. The natural pattern of reading is also very disrupted. Not a pleasant listen.

Terrible narration

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I genuinely cannot tell if this book is good or not. It has an intriguing premise and I've previously enjoyed a book written by Sarah Ward.

The narrator made it impossible for me to concentrate on the story, such was my incredulity at the amount of mispronounced words. Very distracting.

Viscous is an altogether different word than vicious, and relevation is a made up one!

This one is going back.

The Narration!

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I have to agree with the other reviewers - a good detective story let down by an appalling narration. The narrator, editor and publisher should all be ashamed to have let the multiple mispronunciations of not uncommon words go uncorrected. The childish emphasis applied to many phrases and sentences completely took away their meaning and impact.

What a shame.

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Good story but found the narrator difficult to listen to.
still worth a listen though.

I enjoyed the plot

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