Death by Silver

De: Melissa Scott, Amy Griswold

Narrado por: Matthew Cresswell

His practice newly established, metaphysician Ned Mathey can't afford to turn away any clients. But the latest Londoner to seek Ned's magical aid gives him pause: Mr. Edgar Nevett, an arrogant banker, is the father of the bully who made Ned's life hell at boarding school. Nevertheless, Ned accepts the commission to ensure the Nevett family silver bears no ancient or modern curses, and then prepares to banish the Nevett family to unpleasant memory again. Until Edgar Nevett is killed by an enchanted silver candlestick one of the pieces Ned declared magically harmless.

Calling on his old school friend Julian Lynes - private detective and another victim of the younger Nevett - Ned races to solve the murder, clear the stain on his professional reputation, and lay to rest the ghosts of his past. Assisted by Ned's able secretary Miss Frost, who has unexpected metaphysical skills of her own, Ned and Julian explore London's criminal underworld and sodomitical demimonde, uncover secrets and scandals, confront the unexpected murderer and the mysteries of their own relationship.

In Death by Silver veteran authors Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold introduce a Victorian London where magic works, influencing every aspect of civilized life, and two very appealing detectives.

©2013 Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold (P)2013 Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold

Great Story

Where does Death by Silver rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It kept my attention and increased my understanding of what Gay life and bachelor life was like in late 1800's London.

What other book might you compare Death by Silver to and why?

The book was in the format of a Sherlock Homes novel in that a mysterious murder is unraveled by pure detective work and it takes place in a similar city and time with two characters playing on each other's strengths to catch the killer.

What three words best describe Matthew Cresswell’s voice?

Voice is excellent. The quality of the recording itself was just below excellent. The editing was obvious and distracting, at times one heard the narrator swallow, turn pages, move his chair and one heard background sounds.

Well paced

I enjoyed listening to Death by Silver, a historical magical murder mystery with cursed items and people being people. In addition to solving the case the main characters have flashbacks to former school violence. I was pleased that one of them asked the question of why tormenting students is acceptable behavior but pointing out the school allows bullying is not.

Worldbuilding: The magic is lightly overlaid on Victorian-ish London but doesn’t really change much. It’s not a problem for the story, it just makes the necessity for/presence of magic a little thin. I honestly think the book would change very little if the magic was removed.

Mystery: Resolves mostly satisfactorily, although the choice to have the guy’s enemies prove his innocence was interesting. Not entirely surprising but the plotting and pacing were pleasing.

Steam: Low. All off page and often referenced obliquely. M/M main romance with secondary characters in M/F & M/M relationships.

Narration: Iffy quality. Aside from the occasional sniffle, Reader was pretty good, but the audio editing was not. I don’t know London accents enough to say if it was a good fit - as an American listener I found it understandable but had to turn my speed back down by 0.2.

Back to editing sound quality- it was sort of good enough, but might put off some listeners.
From least to worst:
-The pauses between scenes are inconsistent. Some are long enough to wonder if there’s a problem.
-There are multiple times when a sentence or two is repeated. (I assume this is done when restarting a recording to make sure the reader is speaking fluidly by the time new text is spoken, go make the join more seamless and offering more than one join point.) But that repetition shouldn’t be in the final cut.
- There are also multiple places where there’s a glitch mid-word, and often the glitch is in the main word in the sentence like a name. I had to rewind some places several times only to realize it wasn’t me, it was garbled and unknowable. (I assume this might happen where audio files are stitched together but maybe it’s just faulty because why would a pro narrator cut & stitch text files mid word or mid sentence?)

ehhhh

the story was good but the performance almost ruined the experience with too many pauses

Wonderful story

Thoroughly enjoyed the story. Narrator is great but takes odd long pauses with rapid narration, so took time to get used to. Completely worth it

Well written intriguing mystery but many narration editing problems

Alt world Victorian London murder mystery with a dash of m/m, what's not to love?
The narrative style and dialogue were witty and perfectly pitched as to the situation at hand. The flashbacks truly helped the reader (I read this first) understand the current state of affairs among the players in the drama. Well Done!

Unfortunately, the audible version was not so delightful. The narrator did tolerably well with character voices (There were some inconsistencies in accent and timbre), but the editing! As one of the characters might say, "I could hardly keep my countenance!" Long pauses, repeat sentences, truncated paragraphs, disturbing extraneous noises (like sirens), snuffling, were almost distracting enough to render it unlistenable, which is truly a shame as the story is so good. I would recommend to the authors or Audible that they spend a few schillings on a re-edit of this delightful tale so as increase its appeal and market value