Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • Places in the Darkness

  • By: Chris Brookmyre
  • Narrated by: Robin Miles
  • Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (326 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.
Places in the Darkness cover art

Places in the Darkness

By: Chris Brookmyre
Narrated by: Robin Miles
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 £13.00

Buy Now for £13.00

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...

Jaggy Splinters cover art
A Litter of Bones: A Scottish Crime Thriller cover art
HALO: The Fall of Reach cover art
Freehold cover art
Prime Suspects cover art
The Way of All Flesh cover art
The Year's Top Short SF Novels 7 cover art
A Man with One of Those Faces cover art
The Year's Top Ten Tales of Science Fiction 10 cover art
Hero at Large (Second Edition) cover art
The Stranger Times cover art
I Predict a Riot cover art
Mystery Man cover art
Colony Mars: The Complete Trilogy cover art
Dr Yes cover art
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch cover art

Summary

Million-copy-selling Chris Brookmyre takes his fiction further than ever before in this wildly inventive and sharply-plotted novel set in the unforgiving emptiness of space. 

Longlisted for the Mcilvanney Prize for Crime Writing 2018

"This is as close to a city without crime as mankind has ever seen." 

Ciudad de Cielo is the 'city in the sky', a space station where hundreds of scientists and engineers work in earth's orbit, building the colony ship that will one day take humanity to the stars. 

When a mutilated body is found on the CdC, the eyes of the world are watching. Top-of the-class investigator, Alice Blake, is sent from Earth to team up with CdC's Freeman - a jaded cop with more reason than most to distrust such planetside interference. 

As the death toll climbs and factions aboard the station become more and more fractious, Freeman and Blake will discover clues to a conspiracy that threatens not only their own lives, but the future of humanity itself. 

©2017 Chris Brookmyre (P)2017 Little, Brown Book Group

Critic reviews

"Fascinating, fast-paced but thoughtful." (Iain M. Banks)

"Entertaining and intelligent." (Patrick Ness)

"Razor sharp." (The Big Issue)

What listeners say about Places in the Darkness

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    159
  • 4 Stars
    110
  • 3 Stars
    42
  • 2 Stars
    11
  • 1 Stars
    4
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    172
  • 4 Stars
    83
  • 3 Stars
    31
  • 2 Stars
    8
  • 1 Stars
    5
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    143
  • 4 Stars
    97
  • 3 Stars
    42
  • 2 Stars
    9
  • 1 Stars
    7

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

Well worth trying if you like recent Brookmyre

i was a bit in two minds about this, i read a lot of thrillers and mystery. I do occasionally go for a sci-fi or fantasy title, especially liking the expanse series by James A Corey (for other fans, Detective Miller would happily fit in with Brookmyre`s characters!).

With this in mind, i really enjoyed the book. Brookmyre presents his usual brand of richly detailed anti-heroes and throws them onto a space station. There is some dark humour along the way, a twisty plot and some morals to ponder, so once you get over the space station, it is basically what he usually produces!

There are no lazer guns, aliens and the like. This is a mystery in space. I suspect that it will be accessible by both mystery and sci-fi fans alike. It falls into that rare category of being well written and accessible Sci-Fi, and for that alone it is probably worth a look.

Brookmyre fans, keep an open mind, it is worth giving a chance. Although it is probably not for everyone, i am hoping that this is not the last we see of Nicky Fix and her world.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

12 people found this helpful

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

Top Quality SciFi

Not only is this one of the best Chris Brookmyre novels, it is an excellent sci-fi work and can be ranked with the greats. It offers a glimpse into an entirely believable near future set in a city in near Earth orbit. The tech details are intriguing and credible. The storyline twists and turns and surprises. Top marks too to the excellent narration.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

9 people found this helpful

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

Hooked on Brookmyre

So far my genre has been Crime and Thriller but was getting fed up with plodding detectives. I looked around for a writer of wholesome stories and found Chris Brookmyre. what a find. This story with an unusual setting held me and carried me along at an unflagging pace. The story is well plotted and totally believable. The narrator was brilliant. All in all a superb read which I could not put down. Just finished Black Widow with equal satisfaction.

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

Good story

This is a good story re realistic future some of the technologies they are playing around with today and all-female cast that does not detract from the story there is male characters but not important once the female rolls being masculine and feminine enjoying and intelligent well worth a listen

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
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars
  • G
  • 24-01-20

mediocre, derivative sci fi

The novel starts well but there are some bizarre and lazy choices from about a third of the way in. well written moment to moment but not particularly satisfying on the whole. the third act is almost entirely the antagonist explaining her plan for what feels like hours like some moustache twirling cliche villain from a bad 70s spy flick.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

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

Not for me

Started off really liking this, then I started to work out what was likely to be the “twist”. So, fast forwarded to the end, and yep was more or less what I’d worked out. I had just re-listened to Black Widow prior to getting this, and that is such a super book that I couldn’t pursue this at all.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

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

Good story awful, awful narrator

It took me a good few chapters to get used to the narrator. I genuinely questioned whether this was an experiment to use a robotic voice but when I heard the terrible attempt at accents then I knew it was an actual person. The accents used are akin to Russel Crowes in Robin Hood in that they drift between various accents and just annoy.

If you can get over the narrator issue, it is a pretty good book. Eventually you get used to it but it is a huge sticking point and if I hsee anything narrated by the same voice artist in the future, I will avoid it no matter how good the book might be.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

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

Disappointed...

Would you try another book written by Chris Brookmyre or narrated by Robin Miles?

No, I don't think so. The narrator was okay but the author left me disappointed.

What was most disappointing about Chris Brookmyre’s story?

Too many clichés, too unbelievable and plot too lightweight for the rich backdrop of a giant space station.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

The narrator did a good job overall but I wasn't a fan of her using old school street accents from the likes of Kojak or Columbo.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Places in the Darkness?

No spoilers from me!

Any additional comments?

The seedy underworld scenario was just too unbelievable for me, given where the story is set. And the good cop / bad cop cliché was the final straw. I'm going to ask for a refund on this one.

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

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

"For the greater good."

It was with surprise, and delight, that I discovered one of my favourite authors had written a murder mystery based science fiction novel, a step outside of his more usual crime stories. As meticulous as ever in his visual impressions and well developing characters, Meet Alice Blake, arriving at space station Ciudad de Cielo (City in the Sky, more commonly referred to as CdC) to take up her new appointment: to clean up the.crime endemic amongst much of the population. To help.acid e this, she's paired with a middle aged ex earth cop, nicknamed Nikki Fix, with whom Alice frequently found herself in opposition. A gang war had apparently just started up with full ferocity as the dismembered remains of someone were discovered on the day of Alice's arrival, the first murder of the City.

Written with Brookmyer's skills of vivid picture painting and conversation, with good science fiction aspects without swamping the reader in technicalities and an exciting and intriguing plot to keep the readerguessing, this is a most enjoyable book, happily lasting almost fifteen hours with just a few repetitious lines which courage been omitted but did also serve to remind about points made earlier.

The narration was also good, although Robin Miles' voicing for the two main protagonists should have been more differentiated to more clearly reveal the speaker at that time. Not a major problem, however, and she was a pleasure to hear, her voice warm, it at all shrill as are many female narrators, with full range of emotion as she obviously involved herself in the understanding of what she was reading g. A slightly slower than I like delivery was easily resolved by a slight increase in the playback speed. Overall, a good and enjoyable performance which helped enhance the story.experience.

To move to a different genre cannot be easy for an established author but Mr.Brookes succeeds well in this stand alone SF murder mystery, also incorporating some ideas to make his audience think. I hope that there will be more to come.
Recommended.

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

brookmyre without the scottish

Love a bit of CB, bit more squeamish that his others. good read, I enjoyed it

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

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful