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So Much Blood

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So Much Blood

By: Simon Brett
Narrated by: Simon Brett
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About this listen

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. Suspense Thriller & Suspense Witty

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All stars
Most relevant
I came to this series via the Radio 4 dramas, so this was a little different- it is set in the early 1970s and the character seems slightly different too.

But once I adapted to the change I enjoyed it, as always.

Period Piece

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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.

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

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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

Another winner

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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.

So much literary reference

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

Charles Paris

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