• Smoke and Whispers

  • By: Mick Herron
  • Narrated by: Julia Franklin
  • Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (53 ratings)

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Smoke and Whispers  By  cover art

Smoke and Whispers

By: Mick Herron
Narrated by: Julia Franklin
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Publisher's summary

When a body is hauled from the River Tyne, Sarah Tucker heads to Newcastle for a closer look. She identifies the dead woman as Private Detective Zoë Boehm, but putting a name to the corpse only raises further questions. Did Zoë kill herself, or did one of her old cases come back to haunt her?

Coincidence is an excuse that soon appears pretty unconvincing. Sarah can’t leave until she’s found the answers to her questions, however dangerous they might turn out to be.

©2009 Mick Herron (P)2020 Isis Publishing Ltd

What listeners say about Smoke and Whispers

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

Favorite one of the series yet

Fun plot lines, interesting characters, and a thoroughly compelling situation. Julia Franklin rocks the performance as usual. Highly recommend!

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

Enjoyed but no Slow Horses

I found the main character, Sarah, just a little annoying at times, and I didn’t really follow all of her thinking that kept her hanging around. The end of the book made sense, just not particularly how Sarah got there. Maybe I was distracted during the listening so it might be me.

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

Psychologically intense, comedically entertaining

Mick Herron does a tremendous job of taking us inside the thoughts of the main character. She is not a superhero, but an emotionally and intellectually flawed woman dealing with problems almost beyond her grasp. She makes mistakes -- and we are aware of them most of the time -- but we ride along inside her head on the wave of Herron's delightful and often hilarious prose. There is little action, but a great deal of tension in the book. And, despite her problems, the main character turns out to be stronger and smarter than we, or she, thinks she is.

Julia Franklin did a great job of differentiating the characters vocally. And her almost over-the-top performance of the main character's internal monologues perfectly emphasized how the character was frequently almost overtaken by surprise, doubt, wonder, anger, or what-have-you. I loved it.

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

Ridiculous plot

After this, I can understand why Mick stopped the series. He can do better.

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

Too Much Talk!

Much ado about nothing! Well- performed narration. Too much talking; little action; no suspense. Chickflickery.

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

Great narrator- awkward story

The protagonist is flat and two dimensional. The antagonist is barely a side character. What little plot exists is not worth the time it takes to listen to it. I wish I could get my money back for this book.

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

Save yourselves

This was an agonizing hours long trip to who cares anymore. I don’t often fast forward through books but I kept waiting for something, anything to happen and it took until the last two hours for some reason to keep listening. And this narrator is not easy to listen to. Every character sounds forced and there’s an odd push to many words, as though she’s running out of breath. Definitely not one of Mick Herron’s best.

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