The Amazing Chance

De: Patricia Wentworth

Narrado por: Anne Hancock

1925, Germany:

As a mute, burly German peasant is helping British soldiers move a fallen tree, he's struck on the head. When he regains consciousness he calls out to the astonished Major Manning, using his nickname "Monkey"—in perfect English.

Ten years earlier in the days of the Great War, cousins Jim and Jack Laydon were both lost during an air mission. Now one of them has miraculously returned having recovered from a decade of amnesia and with most old memories intact, although his years as a laborer have changed his build and appearance. Greedy relatives who stand to inherit the Laydon fortune work hard to discredit his story. But is he the husband of the lovely Evelyn Laydon...or his cousin who she also once loved? Laydon claims he doesn't know and it's up to Evelyn to find the truth.

Public Domain (P)2022 Anne Hancock

Certainly an unusual plot

It was a good story but did drag a bit and was a bit wordy. This was clearly an early book in Patricia Wentworths long
Writing Career. She definitely improved in her writing skills with the “Miss Silver” mysteries
I would suggest reading a few of those before deciding whether she is a good writer
I have read most of those and loved them. The narration was very good.

Really dragged on

The story was intriguing but worked better if it was a short story or novella.

I finally had to stop

with 2 and a half hours to go. Someone said it was a romance, yes, but do all romances go on excruciatingly like this? No one can come right out and say anything - you could say that was because of the era. But all this ridiculous building of suspense, and nothing to show for it. I listen to cozy mysteries to feel better, not to pull my hair out!

Sweet, slow romance

No surprises here. This is really a romance. I came for the mystery but that was sorted in my mind quite early on. So I stuck around for the romance. It’s that lovely, slow romance of sweet manners and so much left unsaid. It is a very particular kind of narrative that has a strong undercurrent of romantic attachment yet does not languish in that realm. Certainly not 21st century style, simply because we don’t do it this way anymore, nor do we talk or write about it as such. For that very reason it is a tender, uplifting narrative.