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Fear Stalks the Village
- Narrated by: Oona Beeson
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
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Fear Stalks the Village
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Summary
A novelist ambles down the lanes of a cosy country village, replete with Tudor houses and quaint cottages. In her writer's mind she pictures the sordid truth beyond the veneer, a seemingly laughable proposition - until the coming of the letters. Anonymous letters from a poisoned pen, sowing discord and defaming everybody from the Rector to the 'queen of the village' Miss Decima Asprey. Naturally, where there is venom in the air and dark secrets are threatening to come to light, the shadow of death is not far behind.
Ethel Lina White's 1932 classic is one of the foundation stones of the village mystery sub-genre of crime fiction. Revelling in the delicious contrast of angelic outer appearances and the wickedness behind the facade, White's novel is a witty and satisfying interwar mystery.
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What listeners say about Fear Stalks the Village
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Amir Hussain
- 03-04-24
Enjoyable but over intricate denoument
Possibly one of the precursors to the archetypal mystery novel set in an idyllic English village. Christie's the moving finger came a decade after this, and Wentworth's poison in the pen followed 13 years later, so ELW was certainly a trailblazer. ELW does well to integrate a large cast of characters into the setting of the idyllic countryside, which she depicts with admirable depth, detail, and atmosphere. Underneath this picturesque mise en scene, she displays the shallow village politeness, and constructed social etiquette, beneath which lies a seething undercurrent of duplicity, hypocrisy, spite and malice. The plot only seems to trip itself up with an overly intricate denoument, but one cannot blame an author for trying to be clever. The narrater is not quite up to the mark, but she does an adequate job. Her reading is in no way intolerable or offensive, like Mcdowell butchering of the wimsey books, just increase the speed to x1.25 which eliminates the unnecessarily slow tempo and pauses.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- keefy
- 06-03-24
Mediocre
Mediocre story with mediocre reading. In parts diction was poor and muffled. It’s a shame the series no longer has Martin Edwards introductions. Maybe time to retire the Crime Classics series.
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