Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • So Much Blood

  • By: Simon Brett
  • Narrated by: Simon Brett
  • Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (132 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
So Much Blood cover art

So Much Blood

By: Simon Brett
Narrated by: Simon Brett
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

Charles Paris: Cast in Order of Disappearance cover art
Mrs Pargeter's Principle cover art
Corporate Bodies cover art
Father Paolo Baldi Mysteries cover art
No Commitments: Series 6-9 cover art
No Commitments: Series 1-5 cover art
The Crime at Black Dudley cover art
Death at the Auction cover art
Next Season cover art
Paul Temple: The Complete Radio Collection: Volume One cover art
Good Murder cover art
The Holiday Murders cover art
Murder on the Lusitania cover art
The Third Sin cover art Rumpole of the Bailey cover art
The Toff cover art

Summary

Charles Paris returns again, in a fringe show at the Edinburgh Festival, with another nubile girl to provoke him, his accommodating wife to console him and a gory murder to challenge him.

Edinburgh and the Festival are both background and foreground with Charles flitting between a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a ‘mixed-media’ satire, a late-night revue and his own one-man show on Thomas Hood. Then a fading pop star is murdered, there’s a bomb scare in Holyrood Palace and someone makes a suicide leap from the top of the Rock….

©1985 Gareth Owen (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

What listeners say about So Much Blood

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    63
  • 4 Stars
    45
  • 3 Stars
    18
  • 2 Stars
    6
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    67
  • 4 Stars
    34
  • 3 Stars
    12
  • 2 Stars
    5
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    55
  • 4 Stars
    43
  • 3 Stars
    16
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Edinburgh in the festival - all the world's a stage

This novel has aged better than most, or maybe it just seems so to me - I was there in 1974, too; fortunately a student, not a middle-aged roué ( of either gender ) like Charles Paris. The story is full of twists and turns, sometimes even cliffhanging - plenty of high spots in our volcanic city.
Charles of the books is much less cuddly than his Radio 4 avatar as played by Bill Nighy, less witty and more promiscuous, but of course of a previous generation - he'd be 87 by now, assuming his inexplicable taste for a certain nasty blended cooking whisky - wiser drinkers only touch GOOD malts - hadn't destroyed liver, brain and libido.
However, this book did evoke for me the atmosphere and magic of the big E in August. Things change in Edinburgh but the essentials remain.
There is the hideous sexism of the time, less pronounced than in other novels, perhaps because of the eclectic festival situation, and we're spared denigration of LGBT people.

Brett does a reasonable job on Scots accents. A generic music hall voice wouldn't have done for diverse characters - genteel Edinburgh isn't West Coast rural, or Glasgow (genteel or not), or angry young man.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

14 people found this helpful

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

Another winner

As always Charles Paris is a delight. Brett crafts his story with wit and a nod to academia that is engaging. I can never be bored by Paris

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

8 people found this helpful

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

Not stage struck - more stage battered.

1974, and Maurice, his agent, still not having provided suitable employment, actor Charles Paris accepts an invitation to take his one man show about Thomas Hood to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In barracks like dogs smelling of perpetual cabbage dinners and surrounded by, mostly, students, the 47 years old actor finds himself witness to an unfortunate death by stabbing in one of the rehearsals. Deemed an accident by most, including, it seemed, the police, Paris was not so sure. Something in the terrified eyes of the victim earlier convinced him this was murder. Time for another Charles Paris investigation.

These humorous theatrical murder mysteries are great fun. Charles himself, a little pathetic but charming long separated but not divorced from his wife, has a definite way with the ladies, a long, if not overly successful, career as a profession actor and a propensity for finding himself in uncomfortable situations. Many of the books have been cleverly adapted as plays for BBC radio with Bill Nighy playing the lead role superbly. This edition is the unabridged novel, read by the author, Simon Brett. Although skillfully performed with the numerous characters voiced distinctly and individually, and the text clear and we'll intoned, frequent very audible intakes of breath during sentence narration is annoying. Nevertheless, this is an enjoyable, lightweight but intriguing mystery filled with the background of amateur theatre and some marvellous characters.

Each chapter is headed by a quote from one of Thomas Hood's mostly terrible punning poems, echoing Charles' surprisingly successful one man show.
Recommended.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

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

I got confused with all the different characters

Simon Brett is brilliant, both as a narrator and writer, but with this one, I think he's forgotten that the rest of us aren't ….
So what this needs is a cast list. I got totally confused with who is who and what is what and who has motives and who doesn't,and what was going on at all.
Still, I'm on my third listen and so maybe it will all come clear.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

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

Excellent!😉

So entertaining, interesting characters, likable rogues,great pace and humour throughout. I have listened to all the BBC dramatistion with the delightful voice choices which, are addictive and hesitated in buying this book but it is wonderful too. I got home tonight having taught and feeling zapped but the story has easily kept me engaged as I potter about! Thank you, Simon Brett, for sharing your gifts...you have been prolific in your writing for radio which, brings life's bittersweet, laugh or cry lives of familiar yet the not yet met characters' stories into my home. Never dark but not avoiding dark occurrences, somehow you bring the beauty of human nature, multifaceted and evoke empathy for individuals that commit murder! Charles Paris is so likeable,debauched but has depths that make his ,along with his separated wife delightful main characters. There's gentle comedic quality, full on boobs, scenarios that surprise and keep you intrigued, keen to hear
more!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

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

So much literary reference

I cannot count the number of times I have HATED the narration when done by the author - to the point when I don't buy the book, regardless of the reviews. However, this time I didn't notice the narrator until after I had clicked the 'Confirm Purchase' button - a happy mistake. I thoroughly enjoyed the book AND the narration, thank you.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

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

Easy listen

Very well read and plotted. End twist was signposted fairly early - but a comfortable listen.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

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

Fascinating

The excellent. Thoroughly entertaining and attractive read creatively by the author. One of my most favorite products of Simon Brett.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

Charles Paris

Story was good, the reading ok. This was not the BBC Charles Paris. Will stick to the BBC version from now on.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

entertaining

not the best Charles paris story I've heard, but entertaining nonetheless. would recommend it for anyone who enjoys a whodunit

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!