A Dark and Twisted Tide

Lacey Flint Series, Book 4

By: Sharon Bolton

Narrated by: Lisa Coleman

Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

Former detective Lacey Flint quit the force for a safer, quieter life. Or that’s what she thought. Now living alone on her houseboat, she is trying to get over the man she loves, undercover detective Mark Joesbury. But Mark is missing in action and impossible to forget. And danger won’t leave Lacey alone. When she finds a body floating in the river near her home, wrapped in burial cloths, she can’t resist asking questions. Who is this woman, and why was she hidden in the fast-flowing depths? And who has been delivering unwanted gifts to Lacey? Someone is watching Lacey Flint closely. Someone who knows exactly what makes her tick.

©2014 Sharon Bolton (P)2014 Isis Publishing Ltd, Random House Audiobooks

Probably Better to Read

I love Sharon Bolton so I gave this audible a LOT of leeway, though most of the time I want to kick my computer. First of all it's a monotone narrator with zero sense of pacing. She just made it so boring and annoying. Second of all, this book doesn't get good until 2/3 of the way through, so there's that. I detested the beginning, hated almost all of the writing and style. It is seriously lacking in suspense, too fragmented, way too wordy and descriptive, and very very choppy and manipulative. If you want a story, to lose yourself in, forget it. The chapters are short, jump from unrelated character to unrelated character, interrupt important scenes for no good reason, and replace actual suspense with just cutting up the narrative flow. I was miserable listening to this but love the author so much I made it to chapter 50. I was just about to finally give up when it suddenly cohered and got a lot better. After that I began to like it, despite the horrible narrator.

Even if Audible had the first three books I wouldn't get them. This left me wanting to read the first three for myself. i just hope they are edited better.

Be Careful What You Ask For--

Lacey has given up her career as a high flyer in CID and joined the Thames River Police. She's living an a boat moored to a Marina. But she does not stay away from high risk behavior, and this also causes her to find the body of a young woman wrapped in a linen shroud and tangled in some pilings. But this isn't the only body that has been discovered and Lacey is drawn into the investigation on a semi-official basis.

After this exciting start, though, things get a bit slow and I'm not the secondary plot about Mark Joesbury doesn't really seem to contribute to the main story. The situation picks up again with some harrowing story telling near the end, but there is definitely a mid book slump.

I fell in love with Sharon (S. J.) Bolton's audio books 3 or 4 years ago. The major problem was that they were only available in audio in the UK. So every so often I would drop an email to Audible suggesting that they look into bringing her to the US site. I was delighted to see this book when I was browsing the new releases and immediately bought it.

Only unfortunately it is not her best work and it's the fourth book into the Lacy Flint series which means some readers are going to be a bit confused. And frankly the way that the first few chapters bounce around in time made it a bit confusing to me at times.

Lacey has a very complicated and interesting back story. If the reader hasn't read at least the first two books then the visit to the prison and the relationship with Mark Joesbury are kind of floating out there, along with several cryptic comments about Lacey by other characters in the book. In her prior books in this series Bolton managed to control her story to the point that each would novel work as a stand alone. In this case I don't think she handles it as well.

So now Audible, can you please try to get audio rights to retail Bolton's other books? I would buy copies from you, I promise.

Audible please get the rest of the series

Well written with good dialog. Very well narrated by Lisa Coleman. It would be great to listen to the earlier books.

Ugh, a big disappointment. I never got into this one.

Although narration by Lisa Coleman was excellent to perfection, the plotline itself took too long and dragged on and on... Going back and forth with new character and subplots, I found it distracting and could barely get halfway through. Not worth a credit. I kept going back and restarting chapter after chapter. I will be returning this for a credit. Borrrrrrring.