The Other Child

By: Charlotte Link

Narrated by: Davina Porter

Length: 17 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

An old farm, a deserted landscape, a dark secret from times past with fatal consequences for the present…

In the tranquil northern seaside town of Scarborough, a student is found cruelly murdered. For months, the investigators are in the dark - until they are faced with a copycat crime. The investigation continues as they struggle to establish a connection between the two victims. Ambitious detective Valerie Almond clings to the all too obvious - a rift within the family of the second victim - but there is far more to the case than it first appears. Soon Valerie is led toward a dark secret inextricably linked to the evacuation of children to Scarborough during World War II. Horrified at her last-minute discovery, Valerie realizes that she may be too late to save the next victim.

©2013 Charlotte Link; Translation by Stefan Tobler (P)2013 AudioGO

An intriguing whodunnit

Plowing through all 17 hours in 3 days, there were times when I was thinking "that's not plausible," and times when I couldn't listen fast enough. I did, finally, guess the killer before the end but the side stories woven in between make for an atmospheric read that is tough to turn off. Davina Porter does a fine job narrating although she can sound kind of whiny at times. Nonetheless, she conquers a range of characters and puts a lot of soul into her performance. Curious what you all think!

Suspenceful but a little tedious

The story was engaging and I enjoyed it. I'm also a huge fan of Davina Porter and honestly, she's the reason I purchased the book. If you like to be kept on the edge of your seat wondering "who did it??" with a British accent, then you'll most likely love this book. There is a LOT of introspection from the characters though, and that's what I find tedious. Overall, I'd recommend it.

Good story

Good suspence and a moving well told story; deeper psychological background of the acting persons

Pleasantly surprised

I bought this book solely because Davina Porter narrates it; I just love her. But not all of the books she narrates are winners (except the Outlander series, which are all fantastic), and I didn't have high hopes for this novel and author I'd never heard of. But I was very pleasantly surprised. This is a solid, engaging, well-written murder mystery. It's well paced and kept me guessing for much of it, even if I didn't end up ultimately surprised by "who done it." It's not going down as a favorite-favorite book, but it was a solid story and I liked it, and of course Davina Porter was great (although if I'm being totally honest, I chuckled a few times when various characters would suddenly develop strong accents that they didn't previously have only to then fade back into normally a minute or so later).

Awesome book!!!

This is the best suspense/ mystery book I've listened to in a long time!!! Of course Davina Porter is an amazing reader as well!!

Mixed experience

At many points many of the characters behaved implausibly.
Davina Porter did a good job reading it.

It’s Awful

I really hate all the characters in this story. They’re all written as really selfish, hateful, and either completely narcissistic, or completely unaware that other people exist in the works independent of their own wants or needs.
All the women come off whiny and entitled, while the men come off 2 dimensional without any personality at all. I feel like there might be an interesting story in here somewhere, if i could just get through all the whining about how inconvenient all these tragedies are to the characters.

I’m somewhere in chapter 26 struggling to discover the big reveal, frustrated by the feeling that the author has never actually interacted with real human beings at all.

The fact that the narration is actually good makes the complete focus on character building, while avoiding any depth or significance at all, even worse somehow. Her valiant attempt to bring some humanity to the characters makes it clear just how flat they all are.