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The Stranger House

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The Stranger House

By: Reginald Hill
Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
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About this listen

 For years, the Stranger House has stood in the village of Illthwaite, offering refuge to travellers. People like Sam, a brilliant young mathematician, who believes that anything that can't be explained by maths isn't worth explaining. And Miguel, a historian running from a priests' seminary, who sees ghosts. Sam is an experienced young woman, Miguel a 26-year-old virgin. But both want to dig up bits of the past that some people would rather keep buried. As they uncover intertwining tales of murder, betrayal, and love, they must put aside their differences to find the dark mysteries at the heart of this ancient place.©2006 Reginald Hill (P)2006 W F Howes Ltd Suspense Thriller & Suspense Fiction Mathematics Mystery

Critic reviews

"A mystery novel, but far more than that. It's gripping...Hill is wonderful." ( The Times)
All stars
Most relevant
First, a point on the narration following on from the other reviews:
Having previously suffered through a poorly narrated volume, I was concerned following the reviews of this title. While the australian accent is interesting, it's not distracting and 10 minutes into the book, i ceases to be an issue at all - overall I found the narration smooth, easy to listen to and nicely in step with the tone of the story.

As for the story - I followed the Woodcutter here, so was very please to find a similarly excellent listen. Recommended!

Compelling listen

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I enjoyed the story, perhaps even better on the second listen, when I could take in the details. Reginald Hill builds up a rich back story for his murder mystery, incorporating English class culture and complex characters much like in the Woodcutter. I agree with other reviewers that Gordon Griffin's version of an Australian accent (among other things) is absolutely terrible and a different narrator would have been preferable.

Mystery with history thrown in, set in the Lake District

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Good story with great characters.Took a few chapters to get into it but once I did it was very worthwhile.

Interesting characters and story

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Took a while for me to develop a relationship with the characters, but it got there in the end.

Stick with it

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Did the narrator not have to pass any kind of casting to get the gig? The Australian could be from anywhere from Bracknell to Brisbane. The Cumbrians don't know whether they're Geordies or Welsh. And don't get me started on the Spanish pronunciation. Seriously, you could just Google that. I'm sure Madero isn't supposed to sound as whingy and annoying as he's made to, and there's some odd emphasising of words and phrases that jars.

All of this distracts from the story so much that it's quite hard to evaluate the book itself, which is actually quite good. I wish I'd just bought the paperback though.

Oh God, the accents...

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