The best out of 60 audible books I've heard

Complex, detailed, fascinating thrilling, surprising insight into WW2 France coupled with a parallel modern detective story. I will re-listen again straight away and this book will stay with me forever. Truly amazing.

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13 people found this helpful

Outstanding

This is without a doubt the best audio book I have listened to. The story is gripping. It is brilliantly written, it contains action, history, love, tears.
I cannot praise it highly enough.
The narrators are also excellent.

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6 people found this helpful

Outstanding!

This is easily a five star book and I know I’ll enjoy listening to it again in the future. It’s complex and at times a bit confusing due to so many names to remember and some characters have more than one name due to their undercover work in the Résistance. I found myself going back to some chapters to clarify what I thought I’d understood - this isn’t a background listening type of story.

Nearly 30 years ago I was studying at a French University which had been in the Occupied Zone during the war and researched a dissertation on the effect this had on the residents on a day to day basis. I interviewed those who had been in the Resistance and those who’d collaborated with the Vichy regime. Even 45 years later the town was still split between those two groups and the grandchildren of each group hated each other.

This story is very convincing in its description of the legacy left behind by the pitiless German Occupation of France. Some memories never fade, nor should they if we don’t want to repeat history.

The narrators are to be congratulated on bringing such a well written story to life - really excellent pace and enunciation from them all. I’m hoping to find other books by this remarkable author.

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1 person found this helpful

Clever, poignant and a great listen

Really enjoyed this audiobook. I’d not read Manda Scott before but will certainly do so again. The multi actor performance took a few minutes to get used to but then I was hooked. The 2000s investigation was intricate and compelling, and linked beautifully back (and forth) to where it all began in 1940s UK and France. I thought there were echoes of Kate Mosse at times (which is never a bad thing) but it’s also a slightly lazy comparison. You get a similar, immersive feel of being there (in France) but the twists and turns of the modern investigation put distance between the two authors. It rather gave me the feeling of an incredibly listenable hybrid of Mosse, Sabastian Faulks, Charles Cummings and Ian Rankin. Ultimately though, this book stands on its own as a cracking piece of spy/crime fiction.

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1 person found this helpful

Well worth a listen

This is a fantastic audio book, it's a great story with lots of twists and turns.

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Intangible and confusing

While this book was well performed, the storyline was so twisting and intangible I was confused for most of the 18 hours. In the end, I no longer cared who did what.

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Who really did do it.

Well written and well read.
A lot of characters but well managed by the three narrators. It’s a slow burn and once the scene is set the story rolls along at a fair pace. It keeps you guessing right to the very end. Thrilling and insightful.
Highly recommended

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Absolutely brilliant

Utterly engrossing, fascinating detail. I verybrelarely write reviews but this was so good I had to.

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A great and engaging story - too many names!

I loved this book. A bit of a shift In genres for me and I’m very pleased to have stuck with it. The main characters are beautifully drawn and the story is satisfyingly complex almost to the end. My one criticism is the huge number of supporting cast which coupled with the intertwined narratives and eras made it sometimes muddling for generational connections, spy pseudonyms, and simple red herrings. Perhaps that was the writers point but it was annoying at times and detracted a little. But still a satisfying read and the narrators worked well together to bring out the drama and shifts in time. Recommend this overall.

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Okiah

So the stort has a lot going for it, and goes at a good lick but the writing is truly awful, attempting a poorman's version of Hilary Mantel but without the subtlety or nuance.

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