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A Dark Coffin cover art

A Dark Coffin

By: Gwendoline Butler
Narrated by: Nigel Carrington
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Editor reviews

Narrator Nigel Carrington excels in creating distinct and recognizable voices for the various characters in this mystery featuring Commander John Coffin. A colleague from Coffin's early days in the police service appears with ominous warnings about his identical twin. Then Coffin's wife, the actress Stella Pinero, finds two bodies after an opening-night performance. But the identities of these twins and couples turn out to be more complicated and dangerous than Coffin expected. Carrington deftly applies his rich tones to enhance the convoluted twists of this unpredictable thriller.

Summary

Marriage is proving anything but dull for Commander John Coffin, keeper of the peace in London's Second City. With grande dame of the stage Stella Pinero in his life, Coffin's days lack no drama. When the curtain comes down on opening night in Stella's newly transformed theater, Joe and Josie Macintosh are found stabbed to death in their theater box. A curious note left next to their bodies reveals that Joe and Josie Macintosh have carried out a suicide pact.

But the couple's double suicide follows closely on the heels of an unexpected visitor from Coffin's past: Inspector Harry Trent. Coffin worked with Trent years ago, and now Trent is searching for his identical twin brother - a dangerous man; a man who might already have killed a woman; a man Trent fears might have threatened violence to the Macintoshes, the couple who fostered the twins as children.

Coffin quickly realizes that the illusions of the theater mean that nothing is as it seems; such is the case in the Macintoshes' apparent suicide. As Coffin investigates the couple's death, he learns he must find not only their killer but also their true identities.

And then there is the persistent, looming question: Who is Harry Trent and what is he capable of doing? The answer lies in the past - bizarre, terrifying, and horribly real. . .Coffin will find Stella's knowledge of the theater indispensable if he is to solve this mystery of Jekylls and Hydes on both sides of the footlights.

©1995 Gwendoline Butler (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

What listeners say about A Dark Coffin

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Disappointing

Found this book at times irritating to listen to, too much unnecessary padding out, pointless story lines and characters. A name like Coffin suggests something more engaging for a detective novel. Narrators performance also not on a par with say Richard Armitage. Overall very underwhelming and disappointing.

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entertaining

old fashioned gentle and thoughtful. beguiling characters. no gore to speak of so easy read.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

A poor short story with more padding than a sumo suit.

I persevered with this audio book, convinced that there simply had to be a superb twist in the dreary plot to make it worth the effort. Nope. The closest it got to interesting was when the highly irritating and trivial “Mrs Coffin” was bashed on the head. Alas not hard enough. No plot, nothing clever, the culprit obvious from chapter one. The real crime is having been charged a credit for misfortune of enduring it. ZERO STARS.

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    5 out of 5 stars

Coffin ⚰ gets into the blood.

When I listened to my first Coffin book 📖 I had no idea how much of an obsession it would become.
I love them, every one and the narrative is perfect. Try one and the chances are that you'll want to listened to them all. I just hope there's a lot more to come from this author.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

thin plot line.

struggled to finish this book. Didn't find the characters particularly convincing and the plot was very weak.

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