The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam

By: Chris Ewan

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Charlie Howard travels the globe writing suspense novels for a living. To supplement his income - and keep his hand in - Charlie has a small side business: stealing for a very discreet clientele on commission. When a mysterious American offers Charlie 20,000 euros to steal two small monkey figurines to match the one he already has, Charlie is suspicious; the job seems too good to be true, and of course, it is. He soon finds the American beaten nearly to death, while the third figurine has disappeared. Back in London, his literary agent, Victoria (who is naive enough to believe he actually looks like his jacket photo), tries to talk him through the plot problems in both his latest manuscript and in his real life - but Charlie soon finds himself caught up in a caper reminiscent of a Cary Grant movie, involving safe-deposit boxes, menacing characters, and a beautiful damsel in distress.

©2007 Chris Ewan (P)2011 AudioGo

Somewhat entertaining but farfetched

The main character is a clever idea, a mystery writer who actually is himself a thief. I liked his personality and his attempts to work out his novel's plot. But in some ways he was awfully dense in solving the mystery of this story. And the plot became pretty unlikely. At one point the hero just happens to be at a particular spot to recognize a clue. It was also a bit more violent than I like, I think more than was necessary. The narrator was very good and kept me interested, but overall this was nothing special and I probably won't continue with the series

Beyond predictable

Good story but it's predictability made it disappointing . The narration is excellent. I enjoyed listening to the variety of characters. If I had been reading it, I would have most likely abandoned this book once the mystery became ridiculously
apparent. Instead I listened whilst gardening. There are a couple of twists but nothing too surprising.

Storyline flat and narration meh

Ordinarily, I am a fan of Simon Vance and his work as audiobook narrator, but not this time. The Dutch accents sounded like Russian or East German; which very confusing. The plot was ponderous and perhaps it gets better, but I couldn’t hang on another minute waiting for the story or narration to improve. Blah.

I tried, but with three hours still left

It was over for me. I just did not care anymore. The narrator is good but he could not save this boring book. I wanted to like it and be excited to read all of the series, but I guess this author is not for me.

Really quite a stretch of the imagination

Ewans main character is some kind of odd fabrication that doesn't add up to a believable person. For example (only one of many) he is a thief fantastically adept with locksmithing, but unable to identify a pistol when he finds one, and doesn't know how to unload the pistol, or even to know if the pistol is loaded or unloaded.

Ugh! Hated it.

First of all, it's gimmicky. The narrator of this crime novel about a burglar is himself a burglar who also is a writer of crime fiction. Cute.

Secondly, the story has no arc to it. The protagonist is, arguably, trying to unravel a mystery and locate some particular items. But he doesn't make very progress through the course of the book and he just flails around from point A to point B. Then at the conclusion, there is a cliched Agatha Christie sort drawing room summation of sorts, in which the hero reveals all that he has deduced or at least surmised about the truth, and none of it has been earned in the preceding pages. Apparently all the interesting leads were followed and all the best interviews occurred off stage, so to speak. In all, a waste of time and one credit.

Great narration can't save this book

The story was humdrum from start to finish. Simon Vance is almost a delight, but although he is rumored to be able to make a phone book engaging, he couldn't save this book.

couldn't listen

I found this book horrible to listen to the narrator was horrible and the story was hard to follow due to not being able to like the narrator. I have tried 5 times and just can't do it. a wasted credit for me.

Had potential but missed.

So many unlikeable characters! It was hard to care about the plot. Plus all of the female characters were one dimensional stereotypes. So disappointing. Glad it was free because definitely would not pay money for this.

Stale

I've been a bit depressed with reading lately. I hate to think I've finally read it all and from here on out all I get to do is read the same thing over and over again.

The Good Thief was written cautiously. Nothing in it could intimidate even the most timid reader. No puzzling metaphors. No perverse adjectives. No messy self-reflection by the characters. This book goes down easy.