I loved this book

This book is kept my attention from start to finish. I loved the story and I felt very sad when I came to the end of the book. The narrator was excellent and she brought the characters to life. The author has developed a cast of interesting and believable characters and she somehow manages to deal with issues relevant to the present day in an historical setting.

I will come back to this book again because it is too good to only read once. I am looking forward to the next book in the series and I I have no hesitation in recommending this author.

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Enjoyable overall

I really like the characters Archie and Josephine and I thought this was an enjoyable read by the end. However, at times I found the piling up of harrowing events all a bit much - page after page of misery and really awful images. The strength of the characterisation wins through though and I thought it was a good mystery with a good Cornish setting.

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Dark mystery

Another well-written novel by Nicola Upson. Archie Penrose invites author Josephine Tey to his family home in Cornwall. Poor Josephine! She arrives as the community gathers for a young man’s funeral and finds herself drawn into their web of secrets and lies.
The subject matter was dark and disturbing but handled sensitively by Upton. Apart from the familiar characters of Josephine, Archie and the Mottley family, the inhabitants of this close-knit community were an odd and unpleasant bunch. However, the glimpses into Josephine’s life and references to Daphne du Maurier and other figures from the era were fascinating inclusions in the story. Narration by Sandra Duncan is first class.

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this story just keeps giving!

beautifully acted out by the reader, this story keeps dishing out surprises till the very end. A real joy.

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Very interesting story

A good story told well. Second in the series - planning on reading book 3 next

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So enjoying this series

The Author and Narrator are just a dynamic duo and make this series just addictive to listen to!!

There are a few gruesome bits and I may well skip by a couple of mins in future books, but only because I’m squeamish lol and they are written SO well, you almost feel you are there witnessing it!!

Beginning to feel that Josephine Tey is actually not required to appear in these books as Archie, his deputy and the cousins are so fab, that they could easily carry these books to be 5 stars every time!

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1 person found this helpful

Solid whodunnit ruined by anachronisms..

..and the sunday-supplement therapy-speak mouthed by almost everybody in the story. I can take the odd misplaced 'okay' or shades of obviously 21st century attitudes but it was really hard to listen to Philip Roth length expositions filled with a complexity of language and, what I suppose you could call psychological insights, that would not be available to a minimally educated person in the inter-war period. (They were nearly as eloquent as the definitely uneducated main character in 'the Nature of Monsters' whose narrative voice was so jarring I couldn't get through the book.) I had to fast-forward the long conversation between Morwenna and Penrose as it was as ridiculous as it was melodramatic. (I won't give details as it would spoil the story - suffice to say it was like listening to a erudite though glib self-help book for women in self-destructive relationship. Or should that be co-dependent relationships? There's also a very obvious dichotomy between the predisposition towards 'understanding' and the secret-squirrel behaviour endemic in the 'community'. I found it hard to like most of the characters or even care about their fates. I certainly has no empathy with the besotted duo at the centre of the story. They were as selfish and sleazy a pair as any you'd see on a daytime chat-and-fight show today - and not for the obvious reason that will become evident if you listen to the book. On the plus side, I like the Josephine Tey character though I often wished she'd let rip at Morwenna and the other M - the witchy one who seems to do the thinking for everybody in the village. Also, the reader was excellent. She seemed to me to manage all the accents, though I'm sure that there will be people who disagree, and even pulled off the male voices without sounding like a pantomine prince charming.

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12 people found this helpful

Good reading helped plot that dragged a bit

My second Josephine Tey mystery and I continued to enjoy the characterisation, enhanced by reader

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Narration excellent.

A lovely listen, an interesting plot and wonderful setting but all very much enhanced by the perfect narration.

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Slightly old fashioned

A slow moving and somewhat old fashioned tale. Marred a little by an implausible storyline but very well narrated by Sandra Duncan.

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