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The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau
- Narrated by: Geoffrey Breton
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
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The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau
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Summary
From the author of the Man Booker short-listed His Bloody Project.
Manfred Baumann is a loner. Socially awkward and perpetually ill at ease, he spends his evenings quietly drinking and surreptitiously observing Adèle Bedeau, the sullen but alluring waitress at a drab bistro in the unremarkable small French town of Saint-Louis. But one day, she simply vanishes into thin air.
When Georges Gorski, a detective haunted by his failure to solve one of his first murder cases, is called in to investigate the girl's disappearance, Manfred's repressed world is shaken to its core, and he is forced to confront the dark secrets of his past.
The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau is a literary mystery novel that is, at heart, an engrossing psychological portrayal of an outsider pushed to the limit by his own feverish imagination.
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What listeners say about The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Rachel Redford
- 19-04-18
Who's teasing who?
What an intriguing tease this is! For a start The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau isn’t Graeme Macrae Burnet’s follow-up to His Bloody Project (reviewed by me last year), but his first novel which never received much acclaim outside Scotland. It should have.
It’s a Simenon-esque murder mystery focused on the psychology rather than the act set in Saint-Louis, an undistinguished little town on the Rhine where loner Manfred Baumann has his lunch each day in the Restaurant de la Cloche whilst idly lusting after the amply proportioned waitress Adèle Bedeau. When Adèle disappears, the local detective suspects Manfred of murder, even though there’s as yet no body.
There are good reasons for his suspicions, but not the ones you might expect. The past lives of both Manfred and the detective are chillingly fleshed out, but just when you think it’s all about to be solved, there’s another clever twist.
And finally the real-life author comes in and says the whole story is his translation of a 1980s French cult novel by the teasingly anagramatic Raymond Brunet, and we get Brunet’s life which is uncannily like Baumann’s…
Puzzling, tantalising, intriguing, highly original, intelligent, it’s a top-rate listen, and the whole is enhanced by the narration.
55 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Deirdre More
- 04-08-18
Absorbing Tale
This is an excellent and intriguing tale. Well worth listening to; you won't regret the purchase. Whatever you do, don't skip the translator's note at the end.
34 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- GH
- 28-04-18
Great story- shame about the narrator
I enjoyed the story and characters but boy the narrator spoilt it I’m afraid. He has this daft way of pronouncing words like ‘’little’ as ‘littwl, ‘bottle’ as ‘bottwl’ ???!!! it was so irritating. He’s well-spoken and has a nice tone to his voice but his pronunciation thing nearly made me abandon the story. Oh and he says ‘simi-ultaneously instead of simultaneously.
31 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- JeremyJustice
- 19-09-18
Narrator says 'wiv' constantly
He can say chapter 'THree' so I know it's possible, so why is he so lazy with his pronunciation? With constantly becomes wiv, father is farver, and 'probably' only has one B! Proberly the worst narrator ever. No mood felt and the 'suspense' which should be critical in a book like this just never appears because the narrator is duff. Story could be quite interesting, but find a narrator who knows how to speak, otherwise it's like fingers down a blackboard.
21 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- AM
- 21-07-18
Brilliant and Sad
A wonderful depiction of provincial guilt. Funny, sad and, ultimately, brilliant to make the reader root for the central character. Also, I believed the French novel trope so enjoyed the joke when I found out.
14 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Sally
- 24-09-18
awful and boring and dreadfully narrated
The headline sums up my feelings. I hate returning books or in the words the narrator" I got a wickle bit bored wiv this wickle stoweee so will have to abandon it wiv wee-gwet"
He may have a speech impediment, for which I am sorry, but I got the impression he was just being deliberately effete
If maybe the storwee had been weemotely interesting I might have continued, but no... When you really don't give a stuff about any of the characters it isn't worth wasting your time on it. Therre are sooo many books out there which will grab my interest. Plus when most of the time I am listening to books to get me through something boring...believe me this made me want to scream..oops skerweem
I am sorry but it nearly de-wove me insand, I kept having a go to see whether or not my intorence levels on one particular day were a bit low, but no.
Actually whether or not it really is absolutely infuriating or not I though to myself hey life's too short return it.
10 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Jennie Lou
- 11-11-18
Very poor
What a let down. Started so well but became a bit repetitive. Stuck with it but very disappointed with the ending.
3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kirstine
- 30-08-18
More a study of character than crime
The title makes one think this will be a detective novel and though a past murder and a recent disappearance are part of the story they are peripheral to the central thrust of the story which is the psychological fragility of bank manager Manfred and his interactions with detective Gorski. Much of the text delves into their pasts and how this has shaped their personalities. This is slow-burn kind of book where understanding what motivate characters is much more important than fast-paced narrative. I was reminded of Simenon and his Maigret books.
I enjoyed this book and its more reflective style. The post script telling us about the author is most illuminating.
3 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Mark
- 08-03-19
It must be better in French........
This must be a classic case of lost in translation.
There is no mystery or twist, there is no police investigation.
There is a character study of a boring man, which is written without any whit or imagination. The rest of it comes off like 6th form written clichéd nonsense.
Avoid.
Edit;
Ah, now after Googling I now see that the whole "translated from French" angle was part of the joke and that this was a first novel from a Scottish author that was deemed "no good" and then, after he wrote something better, was published with a "literary conceit" in-joke to excuse the fact that it rubbish.
2 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 23-09-18
Well written and narrated
This book manages to distinguish itself from other books of the same genre by focusing mostly on the psychology and inner thoughts of the main characters none of which are particularly sympathetic. I also enjoyed the ending which was somewhat unexpected.
2 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- John S.
- 11-07-20
Glad I bought it
Wasn't sure for a while whether I was really going to get into this one, but by the end I felt I'll likely read the sequel as well. Narrator did a good job with the material.
What to expect? I found it a sort of hybrid between a police procedural, and literary fiction. Tough one for any detail without spoilers, but the "mystery" angle is a subset of the story as we learn more about the inspector and the main suspect beyond anything criminal. Point-of-view alternates between those characters, which worked here for me, though often doesn't. Gorski can be compared with the famous American television detective, Colombo. Also, a definite Simenon vibe as well.
2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mary B. Wheeler
- 01-05-22
Very interesting.
I enjoyed this book immensely. I would never have guessed it would end this way.