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Dover One

Dover Mysteries, Book 1

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About this listen

For its own very good reasons, Scotland Yard sends Dover off to remote Creedshire to investigate the disappearance of a young housemaid, Juliet Rugg. Though there's every cause to assume that she has been murdered - she gave her favours freely and may even have stooped to a bit of blackmail - no body is to be found.

Weighing in at 16 stone, she couldn't be hard to overlook. But where is she? And why should Dover, of all people, be called upon to find her? Or, for that matter, even bother to solve the damned case?

©1964 Joyce Porter (P)2019 W. F. Howes Ltd Crime Fiction Mystery Fiction Crime Suspense

Critic reviews

“Miss Porter shows splendid fertility in comic invention. The comic-horrific ending must be the best crime fiction joke of the year.” (Julian Symons, Sunday Times)
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If I hadn't heard the Dover series dramatised on BBC R4, I might have enjoyed this. But Kenneth Cranham IS Dover. He oozes his awfulness! And so this reading is a pale imitation as opposed to the full on production which I highly recommend for fantastic entertainment.

Spoiled by R4 version

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Nice mystery gets straight into the story and keeps going. Unlike a lot of mysteries we don't get forced to learn about the detective fir the first half a book before a story starts. Sticks to the story.

Enjoyable

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really loved this crazy old fashioned....police work ???
characters are great story walks along smoothly
I kept laughing out loud - yes you can laugh inside of course
the cats are used to madness....they like to see me having fun
yes I will listen to more Dover
I have just thought Dover of the yard . I have hears them on radio & probably read them....I am older I remember my own name

reminded me of when I was young....loved it

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I read the reviews before starting this audiobook and they were a little mixed. Having listened to it now, I would hazard a guess that the negatives are from a younger generation. Yes, it is written with a misogynistic lead character (I believe he is intentionally dislikeable as part of the humour) and yes, he is it's quite sexist but that's the way things were! Yes, they do make a big deal about the fact that the victim is very fat (5'2" tall and 16 stone) but... they also go to great lengths to describe how fat the detective himself is . This book was not written with the mind-set of today (where you can't call a daffodil a daffodil without someone jumping down your neck!). Try as the younger generation might to re-write our history, the fact is, in the 1960's being 5'2" and 16 stone would've been incredibly unusual! In fact, being fat at all back then was unusual! I myself am female and no twiglet but I was in no way offended by anything in this book :) I thoroughly enjoyed it actually and would definitely read another in the series. If you are mature, have a sense of humour and enjoy "rough around the edges" characters (a little like Dalziel perhaps), I suspect you might too.

Entertaining Historical Detecting

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This book was another free book that i downloaded to add authors to my wish list. From the beginning i liked the story and flow and throughout the book found myself laughing out loud at some of the descriptions and the style of writing. I didnt like Dover as a character, hes a buffoon and the narrators voice for him doesnt help. Generally the narration was good, the voices and accents are good but when the narrator is just reading the story outside of the characters his tone i found a bit irritating but not enough to stop the story or the enjoyment of it. I;m not rushing to download the next book as i have others to listen to but will definitely come back to the Dover series soon.

Enjoyable though not the most likeable detective

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