• How the Dead Speak

  • By: Val McDermid
  • Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
  • Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (162 ratings)

Access a growing selection of included Audible Originals, audiobooks, and podcasts.
You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
Audible Plus auto-renews for $7.95/mo after 30 days. Upgrade or cancel anytime.
How the Dead Speak  By  cover art

How the Dead Speak

By: Val McDermid
Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
Try for $0.00

$7.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $19.34

Buy for $19.34

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

After an explosive case that forced Tony Hill and Carol Jordan to reassess everything they thought they knew about right and wrong, both are dealing with the fallout in their own separate ways. While Tony must pay the price for his actions, Carol is conducting investigations into suspected miscarriages of justice. But when a shocking discovery is made on a construction site, and skeletal remains are found to belong to a killer who is supposedly alive and in prison, suddenly, Tony and Carol are brought into each other's orbit once again....

The next eagerly anticipated, electrifying thriller from number-one best seller and queen of crime, Val McDermid, featuring the unforgettable Tony Hill and Carol Jordan.

©2019 Val McDermid (P)2019 W. F. Howes Ltd

What listeners say about How the Dead Speak

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    76
  • 4 Stars
    46
  • 3 Stars
    28
  • 2 Stars
    6
  • 1 Stars
    6
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    78
  • 4 Stars
    37
  • 3 Stars
    14
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    10
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    73
  • 4 Stars
    36
  • 3 Stars
    24
  • 2 Stars
    8
  • 1 Stars
    2

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The same narrator. Again? Why?

The story is one of the strongest in the series. The plot lines opened up nicely, which made the story quite compelling.

But Reiclin is back? There are numerous reviews bemoaning his work in this series.

He is at best a melodramatic voiceover for films in the forties, with women leading pitiful lives. He is seemingly incapable of genuinely connecting to the material. His racially ignorant reading of Stacey Chen is just silly. He sounds like a bad American Charlie Chan reading. She would have an assimilated regional accent like the peers she went to school with.

Losing the regional accents flattens out the story and makes it bland. And the reading of Carol is just awful. Her strength, dignity, scrappiness, humor and desperation just sound pathetic. No one reads this series to identify with a pathetic Carol.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

This series

I have loved this series but not so much this book. I am sorry but this reader reminds me of the voices heard on old newsreels or old movies. He is too genteel for crime drama.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Series back on track; strong narration

I hadn't planned to read this because I’d given up on the series — loved the early books, thought it lost its way — but I’d started about 10 other crime/thriller books that I just couldn't get into so I tried this on a whim. And it's wonderful! If you like the series even a little, this is a definite winner. But if you haven't read these before, I suspect the story might seem scattered.

McDermid plays with expectations. She has characters point out that cases rarely play out like they do on TV crime dramas, and that's the case here. The story starts with clinical psychologist Tony Hill in prison and DCI Carol Jordan unemployed and trying to cope with PTSD. I love how Tony tries to make the world a better place from his cell, and how Carol's love for him keeps her moving forward, although he won't speak to her. We basically know the killer early on so the story is really about the investigation — bodies turn up on a plot of land that used to be a Catholic girls school. Even the car chase at the end is anticlimactic, which is just the way McDermid wants it. The series could easily end here because so much of the characters' personal lives is wrapped up, but if McDermid keeps going, I’m back on board.

As for the narration, I saw that a previous reviewer really dislikes Saul Reichlin, but I found the narration invisible so that I could just enjoy the story - to me the mark of a good narrator. And I found the implied words about the portrayal of the character Stacey Chen unfounded.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

4

I like the series but I doubted I would like this. Happily it was fun, if just for the raucous scene
getting stolen money bank.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Max

Another wonderful book from Val McDermid and listen, can't wait for her next book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

meh

It’s like sitting down with old friends you haven’t seen in quite awhile and finding out they have nothing to say. I’m a longtime fan of the series (and even more so of McDermid’s The Distant Echo—an all time favorite). This one just fizzles and never really pops. It felt like a long transition into what the series might become. Other than that, I’m not really sure what the point of it was. Hoping the series either goes in another direction or has at least one final story to end it with a bang.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Narrator

I love reading this book, but Saul Reichlin was wrong for the narrator. Cathleen would be the correct choice.
Vaden

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

DO NOT PICK THIS BOOK

this is not a book it is an instructional manual!@!! i had always understood ms mcdermid was a excellent writer....not this one!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!