French Fried

One Man's Move to France with too many Animals and an Identity Thief

By: Chris Dolley

Narrated by: Darren Stephens

Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's Summary

Animals behaving badly, other people's misfortunes and the most bizarre true crime story ever.

French Fried is the unfortunately true account of Chris Dolley's first eight months in France and has been described as 'A Year in Provence with Miss Marple and Gerald Durrell.'

Just when Chris and Shelagh think nothing more could possibly go wrong, they discover that Chris's identity has been stolen and their life savings - all the money from their house sale in England that was going to finance their new life in France - had disappeared. A bank account had been opened in Chris's name in Spain to take the proceeds. Then they're abandoned by the police forces of four countries who all insist the crime belongs in someone else's jurisdiction.

The French say it's an Irish crime as that's where the money was held. The Irish say it's French as that's where all the correspondence came from. The British say it's nothing to do with them even though forged British passports were used to open the bank account in Spain. And the Spanish are on holiday - and can't even think about investigating any bank account for at least four weeks.

So Chris has to solve the crime himself. But unlike fictional detectives he has an 80 year-old mother-in-law and an excitable puppy who insist they come along if he's going anywhere interesting - like a stakeout.

©2010 Chris Dolley (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Moderately entertaining, poorly read

I didn't find the story very interesting or compelling and the narrator reads it at lightning speed, about 3 times as fast as necessary. The true measure of a book is whether I'd buy it again and I would definitely not buy this. The reading is so frenetic it makes me very jumpy and it is not at all a relaxing and enjoyable experience listening to this. Very disappointing.

Entertaining yarn, terrible narration

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Yes, but just the book, not the audiobook

What was one of the most memorable moments of French Fried?

The hunt for the fraudsters

How could the performance have been better?

This is an english book, set in France but read by an American. Pretty much every place name was miss-pronounced and the accents were terrible. The humour is very english and wouldn't really be understood by a non-native. Why on earth they got a yank to read it is anyone's guess but it was a big mistake.

If this book were a film would you go see it?

nope, but I'd hire it.

Any additional comments?

no

Nice Yarn but.....

Good story/yarn and good pace, but why oh why use an American narrator? For me, this spoilt the book since the accent and mis-pronunciations (based upon an English (Devonian) main character) of the narrator were distracting and irritating. You should be able to immerse yourself in a good book and it would've been very possible with this book if it were not for the irritating American nasal twang. Just my opinion of course. If the main charachter had been an American then fine (I probably wouldn't have chosen it anyway) but whoever set this up needs to rethink....

V enjoyable

Would make a good film , entertaining , light , true cautionary story , told in in positive and funny way . 🌅

long winded!

if you like a story filled with every minute detail and circumlocution imaginable, this is for you. personally I didn't find it amusing nor very interesting and struggled to keep going and only did so because I'd paid for it.

What a shame the performance let the book down.

Why have an American narrating the story. I have no problem with an American accent if it is appropriate. It was not in this case and it annoyed me to the point where I wasn't going to listen to more than the 1st two chapters. It was a good job I decided to continue listening.

It turns out to be a great story in the end.

highly entertianing

this started well and got better and better. started entertaining and then became compelling . highly recommended