Edinburgh Twilight

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.

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.

36 people found this helpful

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.

7 people found this helpful

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.

14 people found this helpful

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!

18 people found this helpful

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.

4 people found this helpful

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.

4 people found this helpful

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.

24 people found this helpful

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.

3 people found this helpful

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.

13 people found this helpful

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.

2 people found this helpful

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.

3 people found this helpful

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.

2 people found this helpful

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.

first book I couldn't listen to

Didnt like the audio on this book and couldnt get into the story so have given up on chapter 11 and deleted of my device never to be read or listened to again.

Edinburgh Twilight

So far so great 👍 , After a major memory loss i have found reading books so difficult, a friend suggested I tried listening to audio books , I did and though I still have to rewind now and then I can now read and listen or just listen, I can again enjoy a good book and this one is a very deeply discriptive story, Thank you I love it!

Great 👍

Loved this book not my usual choice ,,but couldn't put it down , very visual going to get the series☺

Continuity errors

In the characters background info were irritating and made it hard to see this through to the end.