How the Dead Speak

By: Val McDermid

Narrated by: Saul Reichlin

Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Max

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