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The Flood

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The Flood

By: Ian Rankin
Narrated by: Chris Reilly, Ian Rankin
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About this listen

Features an Introduction read by Ian Rankin.

Mary Miller had always been an outcast. Burnt in a chemical mix as a young girl, sympathy for her quickly faded when the young man who pushed her in died in a mining accident just two days later. From then on she was regarded with a mixture of suspicion and fascination by her God-fearing community.

Now, years later, she is a single mother, caught up in a faltering affair with a local teacher. Her son, Sandy, has fallen in love with a strange homeless girl. The search for happiness isn't easy. Both mother and son must face a dark secret from their past, in the growing knowledge that their small dramas are being played out against a much larger canvas, glimpsed only in symbols and flickering images - of decay and regrowth, of fire and water - of the flood.

©1986 Ian Rankin (P)2014 Orion Publishing Group Crime Fiction Fiction Mystery Police Procedural Traditional Detectives Detective Crime

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All stars
Most relevant
Really glad that this was not the first Ian Rankin book I had read, otherwise I would not have nded up being such a fan!

His worst book ever!

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The title summary suggested the girl was seriously injured as a result of chemical burns, the truth however was that her hair turned silver overnight, which is literally impossible and would hardly be cause for a lifetime of rejection, after all, she basically turned platinum blonde. As this wasn't in the genre of fantasy or sci-fi it was off-putting from the beginning. Of course having paid £7.99 I persevered but it didn't develop into anything very thrilling at all. There were several points where it appeared something sinister was about to develop but it never did. The ending was abrupt. The whole book was basically a drawn out route to discovering her boys paternity. Disappointed.

Not what I expected at all from such a renowned author.

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