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The Unfinished Clue

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The Unfinished Clue

By: Georgette Heyer
Narrated by: Polly Edsell
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Sparkling characterisation and inventive plot from one of the best-known and beloved detective novelists of all time.

The stabbing of irascible General Sir Arthur Billington-Smith fails to stir up grief in anyone - least of all his family, which is no wonder considering the way he had treated them all during the fateful weekend. He had disinherited his son, humiliated his wife, refused to help his financially stricken nephew and made no secret of his loathing for his son's fiancée, a cabaret dancer. Inspector Harding picks his way through a mass of familial discontent to find the culprit - and find much more besides.

©1934 Georgette Heyer (P)2021 Penguin Audio Detective Mystery Traditional Detectives Fiction Suspense

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All stars
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After a few moments I sank into the story, easily believing in each character who appeared. Polly has done Georgette Heyer's writing proud.

Brilliant acting by Polly Edsel,

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Not one of Heyers best but Ok. would have been much better with a better narrator. This one gave most characters bad accents (mexican was the worst) and annoying, static, staccato way of speaking. Very irratating.

Story OK, narrator not so good

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Some of the characterisations of female characters were uncomfortably high pitched, particularly after listening to other GH crime audio books narrated by Matt Addis. The recording seemed to get better as it went along, with the narrator's voice seeming to get a bit mellower, but perhaps I just got used to it. Particularly at the beginning the delivery was jerky and did not sound as though the narrator had prepared. There were a couple of minor mis-pronunciations which I think should have been picked up by whoever was supervising the recording and corrected before the recording was released. This is one of my favourite GH crime novels so I was a bit disappointed with this narration, but there are no other recordings available at the time of writing. It would be really good if narrators took the time to check the pronunciation of words they are unfamiliar with rather than just 'winging it', but it is not peculiar to this recording, I've noticed this lack of professionalism from narrators across quite a number of GH audio books available through Audible.

Some characterisations uncomfortably high pitched

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Quite why this story has not been given to Matt Addis I cannot imagine. Some female narrators can manage male voices but this narrator is not one. Truly grating voices, ponderous tones, over-use of sniffs which were particularly repellant. The local sergeant is actually quite perceptive but this narrator gives him a "bumpkin" voice.

This is all such a shame because the story has a lot of light and shade with some loathsome characters, good comic scenes and a tragic theme and all of it killed by the narration.

Such a shame.

Bad narration of a promising story

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Great story, lively (if sometimes intensely irritating!) characters. Reading slightly marred by the voices of the characters, bar one or two. But no hideous mispronunciations as so often happens in the Regency audio books

Excellent whodunnit in the best Heyer tradition

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I just can’t bear her ridiculous reading the butler is a charter from acorn antiques! Unlistenable

Narrator dreadful

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One of the last Heyer audiobooks I ever listened to due to unlistenable narrator. All the male voices were unpleasant but the butler and Scottish lawyer were shocking. No feeling of the period or the humour in the story. Hope it can be recorded again

Great story but what happened to Matt Addis

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A great classic detective story spoilt by a stilted narrator and some awful male voices.

poor narrator

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The narrator is fine when she sticks to her own voice telling the story but the worst I've heard when it comes to giving special voices to the characters. The male characters are creaky, the female screechy, and one character has an abominable caricature of a Mexican accent. A real shame as it spoils a cracking story. I gave up a third of the way through and finished it on my kindle.

Narration spoils a cracking story

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I'm afraid I kept having to remind myself this was a Georgette Heyer story as the narration distracted me from the plot.
Maybe this programme should herald the addition of nil or minus stars for performance. I have noticed that female narrators seem to portray all male characters with a similar voice. This narrator takes the biscuit as this comprises of lowering the voice, slowing down the speed to mono syllables & croaking the lines. This contrasts with the lesser female characters who are portrayed speaking high pitched & squeaky. As for the "Mexican" character in this story it borders on the possibly racist. It seems to slip into Indian at times & is so embarrassingly amateur. There is a character who has a stammer & this veers from stammering on every word to not at all.
The ONLY saving grace is the "none" character narration which you find yourself embracing as a rest from the "acting"
In future I will be taking more notice of WHO is doing the narration as this makes or breaks a good listen.

Decent story, murdered by narration.

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