Broadland

British Detective Tanner Murder Mystery Series, Book 1

By: David Blake

Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble

Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

Broadland is the first in a chilling series of serial killer books which will rapidly convert followers of Faith Martin, Joy Ellis and Damien Boyd into David Blake devotees. 

When a girl’s body is found strangled, raped, and horrifically mutilated by a boat’s propeller, deep in the heart of the Norfolk Broads, newly arrived Detective Inspector John Tanner is asked to assist with the investigation.  

At first, all the evidence points to a man who had a multi-million-pound reason to kill her. But when an alibi is produced from an unexpected source, and another body appears at the base of a slipway, Tanner finds himself turning to local girl Detective Constable Jenny Evans for help.  

As a more romantic relationship develops between them, they find themselves facing a race against time to identify a lethal adversary, one with a lust for blood and a mind set on revenge.

©2019 David Blake (P)2019 W. F. Howes Ltd

Excellent..

A very good murder mystery about 2 women were who murdered and mutilated and Tanner and Jenny, his love interest, that had to solve it, along with the help of Burgess. I figured out who was doing it but it was fun to watch the others figure it out.

There was no sex, and very little romance and the F-bomb was used 2 times.

As to the narration: I really only bought this book because I love the narrator, Jonathan Keeble. He’s such a perfect narrator.

As male authors age they become so pridictable..

If you enjoy no clues for the reader as to the perpetrator and obvious clues glaringly missed by the protagonists? This may be the book for you..Do you enjoy aging author wistfully romanticizing old men and young girl in his story?....its for you. Yuck.. not for me.

Better than expected

I didn’t know quite what to expect from this new-to-me author. I was more than pleasantly surprised.

Tanner is an interesting character, having moved to the north from the Met in London. He had a tragedy in his past and the change of venue was probably necessary for him. But, of course, he’s looked at as the outsider and immediately forms a rivalry with one of his peers. They are forced to work together, sort of.

Now, I did not like the sexual attraction than developed practically at once between Tanner and his Detective Constable. She’s a bit forward (a bit??) and it seems a bit creepy. And, it really shouldn’t be happening in the work environment.

Other than that, the story was decent and I didn’t figure out the final resolution. The narration of the audiobook was very well done.

Wonderfully Twisty

Now I crave another David Blake thriller. Best review possible... the next is downloading. Can anyone write a better endorsement?

Unsurprising

Great narration. No surprises in the plot, with clues obvious to the reader but not to the detectives. Really tired of the beautiful, young female subordinate becoming romantically involved with her much older boss at work. Ick.

I loved this book and the performance

I like this quite a lot, look for forward to reading the next installment. Interesting characters, and an interesting place. Jonathan Keeble did his usual magnificent job

Engrossing mystery with an excellent narrator

I really enjoyed the story and am looking forward to reading more of the series.

Great Series

Entertaining new series, British police procedural. Highly recommend. Looking forward to future books. Have read three to date.

Great New Police Procedural Series

It was a great start to a new series , and the narrator was filled with tremendous enthusiasm for his part.

mystery lite

This detective story was barely worth the listen. It was short for a novel, the detectives encountered the culprit early in the story so the reader knew for a long time whodunnit, and the characters were single minded in their purpose in the story, including exposition roles. "Because: crazy." is hardly an interesting motive for a villain. The narrative is streamlined, focusing on the question-answer mystery solution, with very few elements of scene-setting, character development, or side stories, though there were some brief examples.

The author uses an unimaginative writing style, with the same sentence structure over and over, making the listen very boring. 'Glancing over at the passenger seat, he picked up the package. Approaching the door, he went in. Looking around the room, he saw the desk.... ' No variety in the use of language to engage the ear or register as a memorable turn of phrase.

The Norfolk broads have the potential to be a strong story element, and the author must be familiar with that region, but they only come in for geography and location. Where is the sense of what it feels like to live there, the people, the pace, the weather, the culture, the visual appearance, the landscape, the history?

The narrator pretty much saved this book. The reading and voices were excellent: clear, distinctive, and with nice accents and perfect timing. The speaker did the best he could to make the repetitive sentences flow.

Not for me.

This probably has plenty of appeal for many but I found it cloying, like a creative writing course attempt that intends to tick boxes for fronted adverbials and noun phrases (of which there are too many).

The dialogue is cringeworthy, particularly the vapid, innuendo-filled quips of the dim and ghastly female lead.

Some of the sentences don’t make sense because they are clumsily constructed.

The characters are more like caricatures, making this like an audio pantomime, especially the homosexual and the working class.

A horrible book to listen to. I was on the murderer’s side. I was hoping they would do away with Tanner.

Broadland

Great story thoughaly enjoyable.Brought to life by the inimitable voice of the one and only audio reader Johnathan Keeble

Cringeworthy

Old fashioned and out of touch. At times I was laughing out loud at this book and not for the right reasons. It seems like it was written in the 1960s by a very elderly author and he simply tried to bring it up to date by the occasional mention of Instagram or face book. The characters were stereotypical policemen. The women were completely pathetic and did not behave at all as young women would nowadays. Tanner’s interest in the young policewoman and her returned interest in him made me cringe. The constant referral and detail to the make and model of various different cars, even those just parked in car parks was hilarious. In addition as the narrator made all the PCs but one (the stupid one!) extremely middle class sounding this added to the sense of the story being dated. I just don’t think any of the characters would either behave or sound like that in 2020. Cannot understand the good reviews. I’m new to audible and it has made me question if I can really trust reviews again.

from the reviews I expected more

From the many 5 star reviews I expected more.

The story is reasonable, similar to many crime / police but set in the Broads.
The main characters are fairly predictable set within a quite inept team. Some of the young constables flirtation comments are strangely out of place and almost cringe worthy. The DCI .... less said the better.

Having said that, I will get the next book to see if the series develops.

Jonathan Keeble's excellent narration is why I have given this book 3 stars.

enjoyable new detective

loved it funny in places bit scary in others. some dialogue little bit strange in places.

Di tanner

I really enjoyed this story already ordered the next one. Narration was perfect as it all ways is with Mr keeble excellent.

Brilliant.

More of these two please. Could be a great series. Keep em coming. I'll be keeping my eyes open for the next one. Love Jonathan's voice, perfect

Awful

Drivel. Poorly written. Rubbish plot. Could have done without two chapters on boat layouts. Thought I was reading a holiday brochure. The performance was ok but a bit hammy and he’s obviously never been to Norfolk (they don’t speak West Country). Weirded out by the female voices he did too. All in all, very amateurish.

good thriller

Good story which held my interest. Jonathan Keeble was fantastic as usual - great voice

Brilliant listen

This is a new author for me and was hooked very quickly, love Jonathan Keeble's naration