Edinburgh Twilight

Ian Hamilton Mysteries, Book 1

By: Carole Lawrence

Narrated by: Napoleon Ryan

Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's Summary

As a new century approaches, Edinburgh is a city divided. The wealthy residents of New Town live in comfort, while Old Town's cobblestone streets are clotted with criminals, prostitution, and poverty.

Detective Inspector Ian Hamilton is no stranger to Edinburgh's darkest crimes. Scarred by the mysterious fire that killed his parents, he faces his toughest case yet when a young man is found strangled in Holyrood Park.

With little evidence aside from a strange playing card found on the body, Hamilton engages the help of his aunt, a gifted photographer, and George Pearson, a librarian with a shared interest in the criminal mind. But the body count is rising. As newspapers spin tales of the "Holyrood Strangler," panic sets in across the city. And with each victim, the murderer is getting closer to Hamilton, the one man who dares to stop him.

©2017 Carole Lawrence (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Not a huge fan

I wound up skipping a fair amount of this one. Parts of it were actually good, but larger parts were merely tedious. Some characters were engaging, others not so much.

The narration was a problem. It was WAY too slow (solved by speeding up the playing speed) and overly ponderous.

I kept wanting to like it. The premise had promise -- a copper in Edinburgh in that time period -- but I just wound up really, really wanting it to be over. So I skipped large chunks and called it a day.

I doubt I will read more from this author, though I do wonder if a better narrator might have made it less tedious.

Unfortunate Narration

I tried but I couldn't do it. A few times....
Have you ever seen the episode of Seinfeld where Georges father goes to the nail salon. "A man with a Strange Halting Way of Speaking"... that's this narration.

I just couldn't do it. The story may be wonderful but I couldn't concentrate on what he was saying.
Oh well, another credit wasted.

Dark and Depressing . . . did I say DEPRESSING!!!

I don't think there was one character that wasn't neurotic, depraved, addicted or highly annoying. Can't think of one character that I liked or could feel a connection to. I don't think I ever said this but . . . it really was a waste of my money.

Riveting Story of Murder in Edinburgh

Serial murderers are scary enough, but when set in 19th century Edinburgh amid its slums and grey weather, the reader hopes for the best as DI Hamilton deals with his own devil's solving the case. Keeps you engaged right to the end. Characters are complex especially Hamilton's alcoholic brother.

Didn't finish

I really tried to listen but couldn't get past the narration. Every sentence was so ponderous and just didn't flow smoothly into the next one. For me, it ended up sounding like a string of pronouncements!

What a disappointment.

Although the book isn’t a top book the storyline is nice enough to make it in to an enjoyable book. However the narrator Napoleon Ryan makes it in to an cringe worthy experience.
I have listened to other books narrated by him for example “The Thief taker” series and that was a joy to listen to. All over sudden he has a lisp and all of the characters have more or less the same voice, and I don’t want to go to the female voices they are really terrible.
Next time I choose a book it will be one without Napoleon Ryan.

Lackluster

For a mystery,it was on the predictable side. I almost couldn't get past the first chapter because of the narrator, though. His narrative was in what, to me, sounded like an affectation. I even played a bit for my friend from Gloucestershire to see if he thought it sounded odd. He did. Anyhow, I pushed through and the forced sounding accent in the narratives seemed to lighten up farther in. The setting was Scotland and the Scottish accents on the characters came across fine to my American ears. BUT this narrator thinks old ladies all speak in falsetto. As someone who has worked in jobs where I use a phone I can tell you with no uncertain terms that old ladies are more likely to have lower voices than in a silly falsetto range. To the point it can get embarrassing when you mistakenly say "Sir" to the wrong person. He really ought to work on female voices if he continues with this work. The problem with all this stuff about the narrator is that when I spend this much time noticing the narration I end up that much more distracted from the actual story. It prevents me becoming immersed. Once again I wonder if authors actually listen to the audio books before they are published.

Great story, terrible narration

It's as if every sentence with recorded separately with a distinct beginning and end. and then strung together. the received pronunciation british english was fine but if I had listened to this entire book I would have hurt myself.

I think this might have been engrossing but...

The narrator was truly awful. He has a repetitive, predictable pattern to the tonality of his reading that began to drive me crazy. I couldn't finish the book even though I was intrigued by the plot and the characters.

Interesting Story

This was a interesting story a little long and drawn out good on the whole. Not sure I would go out of my way to find another book/story by this author.

More than disappointing

Well I bought this as had read Edinburgh Dusk first, but am really disappointed with this book, the story is good as in the previous book.

However the narration is awful, the truly abominable Scottish accents are deplorable, and it's hard to listen to the story and ignore the mispronounced words ( scone in particular)!

This book is set in Edinburgh it would benefit a lot by re- recording it with a more appropriate narrator. Maybe try a Scottish actor for a more pleasant and accurate listen.

very good but...

the book itself is very good I love the story setting and characters however the audiobook is not so good the accents are bloody awful, you will get used to them because of the story but you'll be glad to hear the back of them.

Bit Long!

The Story was good up to a point, just felt it needed to be edited for length. By chapter sixty! I was gritting my teeth. The narration was quite good despite pronouncing "SCONE" like he was eating a very stale one on its own. The geography was a bit out, the author made Edinburgh appear it was built on a level plain. Two portly gentlemen running from Waverley Station and crossing George the IV bridge in a couple minutes! Up a close consisting of a steep flight of stairs to High Street and a slightly less climb to said bridge. Must been fit in them days! Got the Book 2 in Kindle before obtaining this, so hesitating whether to read it.

Couldn't finish

This is the only Ian Hamilton book (out of three) that I didn't enjoy and couldn't finish. Purely down to the performance which I found to be monotonous and over cooked. Would thoroughly recommend books two and three of this series performed by Simon Mattocks however.

Worst narration ever

I bought this to listen to whilst reading the book on my kindle. I have had to stop listening about halfway through as the narrator is by far the worst I have ever heard. His accents are frankly atrocious and bear no resemblance to Scottish accents far less Edinburgh in fact they just sound made up. It has totally distracted me from the book and the storyline. I honestly cannot believe that anyone thought this was worthy of publication. I will now go back to the start of the Kindle book and try and read it without the aid of Mr Ryan.

A good mystery spoiled slightly by vocabulary

A good mystery spoiled slightly by American vocabulary not authentic to the characters or Scotland.

Interesting start ruined by narrator

I've given this 2 stars because the narrator does excellent accents and almost gets some animation in his voice while doing so. Unfortunately, for everything else he sounds like an over medicated, extremely depressed robot, and I found I just couldn't bear listening to him. I've given up and gone on to read the book before bed. It's very disappointing as I was enjoying the story while gardening.

Enjoyed the story but

Enjoyed the story but found the accents grating thought it sounded more like Brigadoon than Edinburgh.

Give this a miss

Sorry, but I could not listen to the narrator for one second longer. Voice annoying sound quality poor

Better as an audiobook than read from the book.

Napoleon Ryan's mastery of the various regional accents the author intended to use has made this audio book much more enjoyable to listen to than the book is to read. The book in no way follows actual Edinburgh street layout the author has several streets run the wrong direction and has moved several historical buildings to odd places. If you can accept that the authors Edinburgh depiction is a jumbled romanticized version littered with American phrases which would puzzle the very characters that utter them, this is a decent book.