Dire narration "murdered" this book

This may be a grippingly good, edge of your seat thriller. I will never know, I got to the end of book 1 and lost the will to listen to any more of it. The narration was boring, stilted and would be better suited for someone looking for a cure for insommnia.

9 people found this helpful

Good but...

I think most people like to read books that are set in a background they know well. Coming from a west of Scotland, Jewish background I was always going to be a keen reader of Alex Gray's series featuring a Glasgow cop with a Jewish psychologist sidekick, however unlikely that pairing may be in real police work. However famliarity with the setting can also make one very critical of any inaccuracy in detail. When it comes to audio books the first thing that is subject to scrutiny is a reader's accent(s). Of course there is no problem with long time narrator of the series Bill Dunlop. If you wanted to be hyper-critical you could say that his reading of the famous verse from Tam O' Shanter which features in the book is a little flat and lacking in inflexion compared to how it is normally spoken but that is a very minor quibble. So accents are fine, and the fact that Solomon Brightman is very much a lapsed Jew means that there is little Jewish detail to find fault with either.



It is with the plot that cracks are starting to appear. There was a quite a vogue in '2 killer' books for a while, but I thought its day had come and gone and I was a bit disappointed and surprised that Alex Gray had opted for this device, especially when combined with that other favourite of crime writers, the killing of prostitutes. Sadly this does happen all too often in life, but it really has become more than a cliché in books set in Scotland. Without wishing to give away the ending and the unveiling of the killer, it is hardly new, even within this series. Therein likes my biggest criticism of the A Pound Of Flesh, there is a definite sense of having read it all before.



In general terms female crime writers tend to bring family life into their books than their male counterparts. Ms. Gray has handled this element well up to now, but this male reader gets wary when babies start to feature as is the case here. As the subject says, Good but... it might be time to call it a day.

11 people found this helpful

really enjoyed it

only just started ghis seria i enjoyed this it was intresting griping thrilling goong to have to gdt thdm all

a bit tedious

the story was OK but references to a full moon were just ludicrous. narration was often boring.

Slow, boring, padded out and an insulting ending

Was expecting a clever crime story, with clues and evidence, a smart detective hunting a killer. Got a badly written, clichéd 12 hour episode of the bill after it had gotten a bit crap.

This book starts with a simple story idea which is then padded out over several chapters. The star of the book then fumbles around putting together the most superficial parts of the story and basically makes no progress whatsoever toward solving the crime. And then just when you think that the story is coming together at the end they throw in a massive deus ex machina and the story just solves itself with no input from the hero at all. The ending was absolutely insulting, did not make sense, was full of plot holes and had no input from the star of the book at all. Real waste of time.

Good Story

As a fan of crime and thrillers, I enjoyed this very much and would recommend it. At times frustratingly slow, I found the narrator's voice well suited to the setting.

Okay

This is a good story and has a nice cast of characters but somehow it didn't really grab me. I don't know why. But I listened to all of it and enjoyed it well enough. I expected to enjoy it more. It could be too slow moving for me.

disappointing narration

narrators voice made the characters seem older than they were. didn't like that. he should have tried to speak like a 40 year old rather than a too posh old man.

Vey good listen

Enjoyed the easy listening style. Good for lovers of detective fiction. Will try another of this author's books

Marvellous Alex Gray

The second of the Alex Gray stories I have listened to, and roll on the 3rd one.
Brilliant story, expertly narrated, and gripping to the end.