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The Yard  By  cover art

The Yard

By: Alex Grecian
Narrated by: Toby Leonard Moore
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Publisher's summary

Victorian London is a cesspool of crime, and Scotland Yard has only 12 detectives - known as “The Murder Squad” - to investigate thousands of murders every month. Created after the Metropolitan Police’s spectacular failure to capture Jack the Ripper, The Murder Squad suffers rampant public contempt. They have failed their citizens. But no one can anticipate the brutal murder of one of their own... one of the 12....

When Walter Day, the squad’s newest hire, is assigned the case of the murdered detective, he finds a strange ally in the Yard’s first forensic pathologist, Dr. Bernard Kingsley. Together they track the killer, who clearly is not finished with The Murder Squad.... but why?

Filled with fascinating period detail, and real historical figures, this spectacular debut in a new series showcases the depravity of late Victorian London, the advent of criminology, and introduces a stunning new cast of characters sure to appeal to fans of The Sherlockian and The Alienist.

©2012 Alex Grecian (P)2012 Penguin Audio

What listeners say about The Yard

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  • 4 out of 5 stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Excellant

What did you love best about The Yard?

The story held your attention.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I enjoyed all 3 of the main characters Day, Hammersmith and the Doctor

What about Toby Leonard Moore’s performance did you like?

A very good reader that brings the story mood and interest.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Heavy Going in Places

This is really not a mystery. We know the murderer early on. The book is more about how long it takes the detectives to figure it out. The book introduces to three main characters who will probably appear in later books if this series continues. The characters are Insp. Day, Const. Hammersmith and Dr. Kingsley. Several interludes in the book give us the background of these characters.

The portrayal of Victorian England is rather haphazard. The conversations are full of 20th century slang, and the author seems to feel that decribing the scene is talking about Hansom Cabs and the smell. I honestly did not get a real feel for the period and I suspect the author doesn't understand it either. Whatever you may think of Anne Perry she certainly gets the period right and you feel as if you are in that period. This is not the case with this book.

The narrator is not a big help either. He is no Simon Prebble and his effort at unique voices falls flat at times. For me he made Dr. Kingsley sound like a twit. Although mostly he does an adequate but not an outstanding job.

The emphasis in this book is on the effort the detectives go through in tracking down a murderer who is right under their nose and how many clues they miss. Yet it is not a police procedural in the true sense of the word.

You make like the book as it tries to create a picture of the early Scotland Yard which seems reasonably accurate. However, I am not sure the detectives are typical of the Yard of that period.

Ths author could use a better editor. In places ths book just goes on way too long and a good editor would have helped enormously. For such a thin story, it is way too long.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Repetitive

While this novel has a few brief moments of competence--and an even fewer isolated moments of surprising excellence--overall it's repetitive and naive. I've never before read such thoroughly modern viewpoints and sensibilities thrust down the throats of historical figures. Not a single character came across as realistic, but rather were portrayed as caricatures of modern people the author Idealogicly imaginined might have existed in the past. What rubbish. The characters were cardboard, the plot was obvious, and the writing conveyed the sense that the author was getting paid by the word. Again and again wildly unlikely coincidence propelled the plot forward. Nearly all of the characters disobeyed direct orders, rarely acted logically or intelligently, and stumbled forward only through the obvious and heavy-handed insistence of the author. If you embrace the idea that the ideal version of your modern hero comprised the bulk of the population in late nineteenth century London, you'll love this book. If you have any sense of history or reality, I can't imagine your reading this without shaking your head and tutting.

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1 person found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Awful

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

It's hard to tell if the story has any merit because the narrator is so bad. Slow, plodding taking big gasps of breath between lines.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Poor Delivery on a Good Premise

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

I was let down with the narration. It made good scenes hard to get involved with. When the serial killer is sewing eyes and mouth shut, and the victim is still alive, I should be disgusted, horrified, just completely into it. But the overly-analytical, blase way it was written elicited NO reaction from me.

Would you ever listen to anything by Alex Grecian again?

Don't think so.

How could the performance have been better?

I dug the reader- I had to double check two different times that it wasn't Tim Curry! But the writing wasn't there to back him up.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment. The premise is good- the beginning of serial killer analysis in London- but the narration is terrible.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Meh

It was not a bad story. I just had a hard time staying hooked to the story. Others liked it very much.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Be patient

I think the narrator holds this back a bit. He. Just. Seems. So. Slow! He picks up a bit in the last quarter or so of the book. I did go ahead and get the second book. Luckily the ones after the second have a different narrator.
Story is good - different, original.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Clearly a first novel

Any additional comments?

Honestly, I thought this book was ridiculous. It was entirely anachronistic, the author had too many plots happening at once, and the plots themselves made no sense. The characters behaved senselessly, as well. You try to chalk it up to inexperience in criminology, but common sense gets in the way. Very disappointing.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A Gruesome Good Story

London was truly tough and grizzly in the 1800s. Crime was rampant, murders unsolved, no respect for police, morgues over crowded, child laborers and ridiculous medical practices. In spite of the horrors described in this book, the characters at the Yard seem real, doing their best in impossible situations. I appreciated their distinct personalities and began to pull for them in their investigations. The depth of the story was enjoyable enough to get me through the the gruesome parts. Worth the read.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

So much potential, so many issues

This book had so much potential, but so many issues - especially near the end of the book. It has a good plot and very good character development although at times it's hard to keep track of all of the characters. There was a lot of things that happened in some VERY short periods of time and the main characters really only had a few hours sleep through the entire story.

The end of the book is where some problems were very apparent. For example, the boy was in a cabinet that was barely big enough for him and yet 3 men ended up being able to get into the cabinet and down into the cellar. The tailor's cat somehow managed to get down into the cellar and back up out of the cellar. The author made it sound like the drop from the cabinet to the bottom of the cellar was quite a drop. How did the cat make it down without getting hurt?

The boy's foot/leg was trapped by rocks and the the author describes Hammersmith removing the rocks, you would think that the more than the boy's foot/leg would have had to of been buried by the rocks.

There is also a lot of things happening in complete and utter darkness. I'm not sure there could be that many places with complete darkness. Especially the bald man's carriage house. Horses were kept here and although I'm sure the construction was good, there would have been some light coming through gaps in the construction. I've read a lot of historical fiction and non-fiction and although barns and carriage houses were built well, to be completely dark in the house - even with the door open - it would have had to be a HUGE gigantic house/barn.

You get the picture. The story is pretty good and the characters are interesting and likable. The narration is very good!!! If you can overlook some of the issues with the book, it's not a total waste of time.

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