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The Chestnut Man

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The Chestnut Man

By: Søren Sveistrup, Caroline Waight
Narrated by: Charlotte Melén
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About this listen

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup, read by Charlotte Melén.

The debut novel from the creator and writer of The Killing

The police make a terrible discovery in a suburb of Copenhagen. A young woman has been killed and dumped at a playground. One of her hands has been cut off, and above her hangs a small doll made of chestnuts.

Young detective Naia Thulin is assigned the case. Her partner is Mark Hess, a burned-out investigator who's just been kicked out of Europol's headquarters in The Hague. They soon discover a mysterious piece of evidence on the chestnut man - evidence connecting it to a girl who went missing a year earlier and is presumed dead, the daughter of politician Rosa Hartung. A man confessed to her murder, and the case is long since solved.

Soon afterwards, another woman is found murdered, along with another chestnut man. Thulin and Hess suspect that there's a connection between the Hartung case, the murdered women and a killer who is spreading fear throughout the country. But what is it?

Thulin and Hess are racing against the clock, because it's clear that the murderer is on a mission that is far from over...

©2018 Søren Sveistrup (P)2018 Penguin Audio Crime Crime Thrillers Detective Domestic Thrillers Fiction International Mystery & Crime Mystery Police Procedural Political Psychological Spies & Politics Thriller & Suspense Women Sleuths Women's Fiction Espionage Murder Thriller Suspense
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Great story, but the narration was halting and took a while to get used to. Looking forward to seeing the movie.

Gripping story

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Warning: Graphic descriptions of bodies, maiming was suitable for a murder thriller, but be warned - there is a fair amount of sexualised abuse of children.

My understanding is the translation of the book has a native perhaps Danish speaker. I want to say this as kindly as possible, the monotonous speech was something I struggled extremely while listening to this book. There was very little variation to tone and little colour in speech to provide interest while listening, but once this factor was understood as perhaps a cultural/linguistics issue, it was relatively easy to follow (except some foreign names that were tricky to know who was being discussed/spoken about).

The story is typical to Scandinavian noir thrillers that I've read or seen before. If you can bypass the strain of the narration, it sometimes felt choppy with some extremely short chapters about things that I found didn't really need to be provided for the fluidity of the story or to help expand on storyline details. However I enjoyed the outcome of the story, and the way the author finished the book was done well.

The Chestnut Man

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Although the narration is rather monotone, this is a compelling story, well constructed and multi-layered. It is grim and dark, with often shocking violent scenes described. As the author is the writer of the original Nordic Noir TV series The Killing, this is a natural companion. A lead female detective, a single mother, who is reluctantly teamed up with an outsider, a detective who has joined the squad after some mysterious failings at Interpol. There is also a touch of Borgen, with a successful female politician also a key part of the story. I enjoyed it and look forward to Sveistrup's next book.

A compelling read.

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The story itself is fantastic. Fast paced, dark, and twisted. The narrator is awkward though and takes some time to get used to. Once you do though, this is a compelling listen.

Great story let down by some awkward narration.

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Although I also have the book on my Kindle, I wanted to listen to it while driving, cooking and pruning vines etc.....however reading it turned out to be preferable.
The reader clearly speaks remarkable English but, as a story teller, I found her voice featureless and flat with, seemingly out of nowhere, some very odd pauses. I found it an increasing distraction from the story line.
An exiting, intriguing, if rather complicated thriller. Not for the squeamish, but cleverly done.
I hope there are more to come.... but I will be buying the book only!

Intriguing, clever story....robotic reader.

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A very long and exciting tale, beautifully performed. Very clever twists and turns, wonderful characters and an appalling series of events leading to some unforeseen outcomes.

A real thriller

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The narrator almost makes this audible book unlistenable. I had to really persevere just to get through to the end. The whole thing is in monotone.
There are no tonal differences for each speaker, so it’s hard to work out who is saying what in conversations. And if there’s more than two people talking, it’s impossible. Further, she uses really strange pauses. A pause between someone who is being interrupted by someone else is seconds long, so it makes the scenario not make sense. And then there were times she paused for so long I thought it was the end of the chapter, but no, it was the pause between two people talking. But then there are really short pauses between chapters.
I cannot believe someone actually reviewed this narration before publishing it. Surely there must have been a mistake?
I highly recommend that if you want to know this story, buy the actual book/ebook, so what is essentially a good book isn’t ruined.

Terrible narration

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This was quite gory, but I found it compelling to keep listening. Initially found the narration flat, and sometimes hard to distinguish between characters. This somehow added to the appeal of the story.

Gory but gripping

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Good book but absolutely awful narration. Names incomprehensible and sounded like the apple drone voice. I couldn’t listen to it and had to read on kindle...

Give me Sullivan Jones

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Wonderful story completely butchered by the reader. No intonation inappropriate pauses and quite frustrating to listen too. Real disappointment.

Shocker

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