Gripping story

Great story, but the narration was halting and took a while to get used to. Looking forward to seeing the movie.

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The Chestnut Man

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.

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A compelling read.

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.

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Great story let down by some awkward narration.

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.

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Intriguing, clever story....robotic reader.

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!

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1 person found this helpful

A real thriller

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.

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Terrible narration

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.

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Gory but gripping

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.

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Give me Sullivan Jones

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...

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Shocker

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

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