enjoyed story but...….

A long awaited story in this series which I enjoyed HOWEVER it was spoiled somewhat by the narrator who, although competently done, was just not Corrina for me. At first I thought that Louise Siverson (the real Corrina) had passed away as has Stephanie Daniel who was a great Phryne but, not so, as I have checked. What were Bolinda thinking of?
Still, it was great to have a new book by Kerry Greenwood and, no doubt, I will get used to the new narrator.

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Another great story in the Corrina Chapman series

I'm enamoured of Kerry Greenwood's writing style and characters. This series has a lot of appeal for me, and this book holds its own well as part of the series.

While i always find a change of narrator part-way through a series of audiobooks to be a jarring experience, the transition here has been as smooth as possible and, if a change of narrator was unavoidable, then Jennifer Vuletic was an extremely good choice. I've not heard her narration before but she's going on my list of very listenable narrators.

All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable story with a great narrator. I'd recommend this one.

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Generally excellent, a couple of inconsistencies

Let’s address the narrator, since so many reviewers seem to be getting their knickers in a twist about her - she’s actually excellent, yes, it’s a bit off having a different reader for the last book but even so, much as I enjoyed the other one I suspected she cold read sometimes, whereas this reader clearly doesn’t, every inflection is right, every action (like speaking in a choked voice) occurs correctly even before the narration tells us that’s what’s happening….which doesn’t always occur in the other books. Naturally her ‘voices’ are going to be different - Daniel sounds more like an Israeli, instead of some husky Australian, which I like, I wasn’t so struck on Jason’s, but it’s not the end of the world. Generally she has a lovely speaking voice which has been a pleasure to listen to.

Ok, the story - twisty, and not all the strings seem to have tied up - perhaps I’ll catch something when I inevitably listen to it again - but generally good. However I was very much thrown by a tiny fact that’s played with a lot that ignores information given about Professor Monk in other novels:

Forgive me, but only using my single credit, and sewing (and having migraines) means I relisten to all my books a lot….

Professor Monk is described, at least twice, as the sexiest 70 year old alive in at least two different books.
In one book (the one where Insular gets bombed - Heavenly Pleasures, I think) he also describes being caught by the edge of a bomb blast in WW2 specifically and having to walk around in ‘the altogether’ because all his clothes had been blasted off him.

However in this one John says to Corinna (and she clearly agrees) that he can’t be more than 60 and there’s no way he could have been in the second world war.

Unfortunately once I heard this my mind kept twisting around and bothering it.

So, generally a good story, perhaps not the best, but it kind of felt like it was meant to be the last, and I’m glad I bought it.

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Good story - badly read

What a shame. The story is good but the narration is very poor. Characterisation is grotesque.

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Not as good as the previous books.

The story is a bit slow and plodding. I also can't say I'm a fan of the new narrator. She's okay but I prefer the original narrator for this series. It is also a little jarring to suddenly hear a new voice narrating characters you are used hearing a certain way. Not sure if I actually liked this book to be honest.

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Why did they change the narrator?

As you would expect from Kerry Greenwood, this long awaited installment of Corinna Chapman's adventures is excellent. We drop into her world as though we never left and the adventures that are contained within these 'covers' are completely satisfying. I won't go into the actual story as I don't want to spoil it but if you give it a go, you will love it. If you love the other books, you will love this one and all I would say is I really hope we don't have to wait so long for the next one.

I have one gripe, the narrator and to be fair I don't think she did a bad job, Jennifer Vuletic did a good job, BUT I hate having the narrator swapped, particularly when all the other books are read by one other person. I have a bit of a problem with some of her character interpretations and some of the ways she pronounces names but on the whole it was read well. If you came to this story first I am sure you would be absolutely fine but I have listened to all the other books many, MANY times and I like the performance of Louise Siversen so this sounded a bit too shrill and harsh in places. Again, this version is actually a good version but it would have been so much better if they had used Louise again.

Please BOLINDA/AMAZON/AUDIBLE, stop messing around with series narrators when they are doing an excellent job. If we can have a version read by Louise I will happily buy that version as well.

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Great story... but....

Kerry Greenwood is a wonderful and creative person, her stories transport you there.
Sadly, this narrator did not do this story any justice at all. She sounded like she was doing a time trial and each chapter had to finished quicker than the previous one.

She made Corinna sound like a screeching shrew! As for the rest of characters they to were a disappointment.

Not the most pleasurable stories to listen too

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