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Six Degrees of Assassination cover art

Six Degrees of Assassination

By: M J Arlidge
Narrated by: Andrew Scott,Freema Agyeman,Hermione Norris,Clive Mantle,Clare Grogan,Geraldine Somerville,Julian Rhind-Tutt
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  • Summary

  • On a sullen, cloudy July day ten years since 7/7, the happy, confident and optimistic British Prime Minister is visiting a charity in East London. It's just two months after the general election which saw John Campbell's government returned to power with a clear majority, the economy is on the mend and the coalition is fast becoming a bad memory. Suddenly, a man appears out of the crowd and shoots him three times in the chest.

    Step forward Alex Cartwright (Andrew Scott), MI5 Chief Counter Terrorism Officer who must find out the truth. But it's easier said than done, as he discovers that whoever ordered the assassination has covered their tracks very well indeed. Along with Ellen Townsend, his trusted second-in-command, Cartwright finds himself embroiled in a race against time which leads him into the murky heart of Westminster... and beyond.

    From the pen of renowned screenwriter and novelist M J Arlidge, featuring an established British cast and with an exclusively-composed musical score, Six Degrees of Assassination is truly a thriller not to be missed.

    ©2014 Audible, Ltd. (P)2014 Audible, Ltd.
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Episodes
  • Ep. 1: I
    Jan 9 2018

    On a sullen July day, ten years on from the terrorist attacks of 7/7, a confident and optimistic British Prime Minister is attending a charity engagement in the East End of London. Suddenly, a man appears from the crowd and shoots him three times in the chest.

    So starts this sensational thriller from best-selling novelist and screenwriter, M J Arlidge (BBC's Prime Suspect, the DI Helen Grace novels).

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    28 mins
  • Ep. 2: II
    Jan 9 2018

    The Prime Minister is dead. Shot down by unknown forces but presumed to be an extremist terrorist attack. Can MI5's Chief Counter Terrorism Officer, Alex Cartwright (Andrew Scott), uncover the truth behind the assassination?

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    33 mins
  • Ep. 3: III
    Jan 9 2018

    MI5's Alex Cartwright discovers that whoever ordered the assassination of the Prime Minister has covered their tracks very well indeed. Can he uncover them in time to prevent further atrocities?

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    29 mins

What listeners say about Six Degrees of Assassination

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  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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I WAS HOOKED!

What made the experience of listening to Six Degrees of Assassination the most enjoyable?

It was a great plot, right from the beginning I was hooked. I downloaded this as an afterthought but it was extremely enjoyable. More like this please!

What did you like best about this story?

I liked the political intrigue and the fast moving plot.

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances? How does this one compare?

many actors in this one

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

the ending was good, kept you guessing right up to the end

Any additional comments?

This is the first one of these I have listened too, hopefully Audible will be doing a lot more like it!

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50 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
  • Mr
  • 14-02-18

Predictable, but well made.

The story was, it has to be said, very predictable. All the characters were pretty 2d, the narrative is very linear and unsophisticated, and the script is quite hackneyed.

It is, however, very well performed, with some excellent voice actors and a great sound effects department.

I am glad I didn't pay for it though...

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34 people found this helpful

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

Very strong narrative drive, would listen again

What made the experience of listening to Six Degrees of Assassination the most enjoyable?

The political premise was thought-provoking and topical and the narrative pacing was absolutely top-notch.

What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

There isn't a book, it's an full-cast audio drama - it's very hard to imagine the same level of action being conveyed by an audiobook.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Probably the domesticity of the relationship between the two leads, as well as one of the character's fear of being deported.

Any additional comments?

Worth listening to. The production has it's faults, but as an example of pacey TV style plotting for audio it's hard to beat. It certainly succeeds as a thriller and you don't anticipate the twist.

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11 people found this helpful

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

Truly Awful. Totally Predictable.

Looking for something interesting, stimulating, something with subtext, possibly an intelligent take on modern political machinations or investigative techniques. Forget it, this labourious wallow in clichéd shite should not have been written let alone dramatised. The writer, if they could be called one, has clearly, almost, grown up watching CSI etc. and thinks that it is true to life and true story telling.

I downloaded this (granted, it was free) hoping for a realistic or, at least intelligent, take on the real motivations behind an assassination and a long attempt to apprehend whoever did it (e.g.. "Evil Has a Name") but this dross was wasn't even close. Every cliché written is in use with not a single line of original work anywhere in both the narrative and the dialogue; every single character is a one dimensional cartoon from the same cliché stable, from the lead male detective with family problems to the butch but so much better female detective to the nasty politicians right through to the bad guys ( Russians, Middle Eastern types, nationalists) and the gun-play! this is set in London, England and yet everyone has a gun and kills on a whim with not a jot of remorse.

The worst part is that it is so completely obvious who commissioned it and why inside the first five minutes, in fact as soon as they speak.

I listened to the whole thing (admittedly I had to put it on 1.3 times speed) in the hope that the first half was the set-up and the second half was going to stray into something more serious or realistic but alas, no such luck. Boring, predictable and tedious right through.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Ludicrous.

A script from the wank bank of The Guardian - dastardly Tories, strong Left of Centre women, shadowy American corporations, Security Service plots, principled Muslims, villainous rogue CIA agents. Combine all that with performances straight out of the IKEA Method School of Acting. Andrew Scott has all the animation of a kitchen chopping block. Audible must pay big money because they get big "names" onboard but the end product is dire. I can't believe I wasted a credit on this drivel.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Dear me

Clunky, clichéd, wasted some good actors. Nothing more to say to reach the word limit

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6 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Disappointing but great performance

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

The people chosen to perform were mostly pretty good. I’ve a bit of a soft spot for the characters Andrew Scott plays so I may be a bit biased but overall I thought everyone was realistic and it was easy to place yourself within the story and ‘see’ what was happening.

Any additional comments?

It felt like the story just ran round in circles a lot and finished up with a highly predictable ending. It felt quite disjointed at times too, almost as if the author couldn’t decide where the story was going. It was difficult to follow just how many culprits there were too and found myself rather confused by the end.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

a+++

a great story , I was hooked from the beginning , I will return to this again

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5 people found this helpful

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  • 09-04-19

surprisingly exciting

for an audible freebie this audiobook was surprisingly exciting. storyline a bit far fetched but well performed.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Poor man's rip off of the 24 TV series.

How has the creator of 24 not sued for plagiarism. This is a blatant rip off.

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3 people found this helpful