Bright Shiny Things cover art

Bright Shiny Things

Hakim and Arnold, Book 5

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About this listen

Out of the blue, private investigator and ex-soldier Lee Arnold receives a visit from an old army mate, Abbas al'Barri. Now living in Ilford with his family, Abbas is convinced that he's had a message from his estranged son, Fayyaad, who was radicalised and was last thought to be fighting for ISIL in Iraq.

Does Fayyaad's message indicate a change of heart? Abbas is desperate for Lee's help in establishing some contact with him.

©2017 Barbara Nadel (P)2017 W. F. Howes Ltd Action & Adventure Detective Genre Fiction Mystery Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Private Investigators Suspense Thriller & Suspense War & Military Fiction Middle East Heartfelt Military

Critic reviews

Praise for the Hakim and Arnold Mystery series:
"A new and original pair of detectives...it has the ring of truth." ( The Independent)
"Bleak, brutal and timely." ( Financial Times)
All stars
Most relevant
...and a wonderful series that I've now unfortunately finished. Hakim and Arnold are a fascinating combination, listen to them...

Great narrator...

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What made the experience of listening to Bright Shiny Things the most enjoyable?

like the characters and finally some movement on the relationship between the central two characters

Who was your favorite character and why?

the two leads are well drawn balanced and sympathetic

What about Charles Armstrong’s performance did you like?

it was fine but had enjoyed Paul Thornley reading to date

Long awaited - book 6 please

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What did you like best about Bright Shiny Things? What did you like least?

Good plot and development of the main characters' story lines from the previous books, but a real shame that it wasn't Paul Thornley narrating.

Would you be willing to try another one of Charles Armstrong’s performances?

Not on a Hakim and Arnold novel.

Wrong narrator

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I found the narration of this book very disappointing. The narrator appears not to have done his homework in listening to the previous books and was inconsistent with his pronunciation of Bangladeshi names, varying at random (it seemed) between "Hook" and "Huk" for Mumtaz's family. He also seemed to confuse "he" and "she" a lot. Paul Thornley did a great job with books 1-4 so perhaps Charles Armstrong suffered in the comparison. However, I'll avoid his narrations in the future.

Great story, poor narrator

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So, the Hakim & Arnold books are great. The stories are strong and all the sub plots work and they are not predictable. My major problem with this particular production is the narration.

Paul Thornley does the other books in the series and you get to know and und Rostand each character well.

This is the reason why I couldn’t get into this book. It was like going to see a great play and then half an hour before the end, changing the whole cast.

It just doesn’t work.

Why would you change the narrator for this series?

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