Not usually my genre, but thoroughly enjoyed

I do not usually read this genre, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. At the start I was not sure of the narrator, but I soon started appreciating his skills. Good overall and highly recommendable

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Enjoyed …but not as much as previous Robert Harris before is

RH sets a high bar - I did enjoy Archangel but not as much say, Act of Oblivion.
The narrator took a bit of getting used to - if you have watched Foyles War you’ll know how Foyle runs his sentences into one another, seemingly pausing when he runs out and of breath. And his intonation almost sounded bored at times - and the pace rushed.

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Excellent

The headline says it all, not quite alternative history but close enough, throwbacks to Stalin's time quite chilling

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Clumsy sound editing

Great book. Very good performance but the
sound editing and ‘drop-ins’ were very clumsy. Try to record the stories in the same studio

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Great story, terrible production

I really enjoyed the story but the volume levels on the audible version wildly fluctuate in places. One moment it'll be too quiet to make out a word, then after you turn up the volume to hear properly it blows out your eardrums.

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very polished thriller

I enjoyed reading this years ago and I really enjoyed hearing it. can be hard to conjure characters from Russian stories but narrator did a great job.

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Superb

I love RH and Archangel is up there with his best. But that’s no surprise. What is a surprise is the narrator - MK has created the best audiobook I ever heard. Bravo sir 👏🏻

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Then Ending is not worthy of the Beginning

A missed opportunity.

What happened:

You’re iimpressed with the author’s craft, his ability to suck the reader in and to convince him that the price of admission is necessary. This is done, not immediately, but eventually, at an unhurried pace. The promise that is signalled in the foyer of the book, so to speak.

The alien (at least for western audiences) landscape is then drawn up with an instinctive verisimilitude. Yes, so far, so good. You slowly realise that Fluke Kelso, the protagonist, is in cahoots with the disembodied narrative as a sort of hybrid delivery vehicle to the real premise and underlying feature of the novel, the ghost of the legacy of Comrade Stalin-let’s call it Stalinism, as it is understood.

This is all done entertainingly, within the ease and mastery of Harris’s writing power, as he builds up the tension & suspense.

And then, after all that build up, at the immediate point that the secret is unveiled and we meet the secret face to face…

…he blows it…the whole bloody thing gets screwed up, the premise dissolves to ridiculousness and disbelief submerges us.

Why? Did the publishing deadline approach too fast and author just run out of time? Out of energy? Out of loyalty to the quality of wha he has previously written?

Who knows, it’ll just have to remain a mystery…and perhaps that was the trick Harris missed. Perhaps, he ought to have let the story play out to an indessive end.

But luckily, the first 80% of the book was good enough to rave about.

The narrator was excellent.

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2 people found this helpful

Best narration I have heard on Audible

I firmly believe that an audiobook stands or falls on the quality of the narration, and this one stands tall on the narration of Michael Kitchen. A gripping story in its own right, Michael Kitchen's narration adds an extra dimension, perfectly capturing the mood throughout. Bravo Mr. Kitchen!

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It was probably me.

The third Robert Harris kindle/audio I have read this holiday. The other two were brilliant. I struggled with this one, not least that the political landscape in Russia has changed from when the book was first published and it was hard to reconcile Russia today with the old Russia.

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1 person found this helpful