Sandraker

Sam Applewhite, Book 3

By: Heide Goody, Iain Grant

Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies

Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's Summary

The aristocracy abide by a different set of rules...or so it seems to Sam Applewhite when her job brings her to Candlebroke Hall, the stately home. The burglary definitely wasn’t what it appeared to be, and the subsequent accidents suggest that it’s a dangerous place to spend time.

Sam is caught up in events as she tries to protect the interests of young Hilde Odinson, part of the local viking family. The Odinsons insist on doing things their own way though, with scant regard for the law. In the meantime, Sam starts to understand that while many people would kill to live at Candlebroke Hall, maybe there are others who would kill to get away from it.

©2021 Heide Goody, Iain Grant (P)2021 Heide Goody, Iain Grant

Another fun adventure

I love Sam. She is smart, fun and crafty. Poor Doug. A great fun mystery!

Fun

Super fun twisty mysteries. The reader is amazing and these are authors you can count on for the urbane and bizarreness of life.

Missing antiques & a Viking warship

Note: While this is book 3 in the series, it works mostly fine as a stand alone but the previous books would give you some fun background on the Odinsons.

I do have a soft spot in my heart for Viking ships and so it was great to see the Odinsons’s ship Sandraker featured in this book. The Odinsons are such a fun bundle of contradictions, wanting to embrace the ‘old ways’ but still have modern comforts. I especially like Hilde as she got all the brains. Also Rune Splitter did his best to clue the clan into their legal rights and issues surrounding Sandraker.

Meanwhile, there’s a new romantic interest (Kiki Lettuces) in Marvin’s life. Sam (Marvin’s adult daughter) isn’t too sure what to think of this Kiki and her funny accent. But both have plenty of stage stories to share and still love the art of acting and entertaining the masses. Plus there’s a movie shoot being attempted in the area that Kiki is part of.

Take all that and couple it with several missing antiques and someone targeting the local DefCon4 Security office here Sam works, you get a twisty, turny, humorous mystery. Haha! Doug the DefCon4 Security cactus! I laughed out loud when Sam got in trouble from the home office because someone reported that Sam and Doug were seen in public drunk.

This series has been a lot of fun. Book 1 was awesome and book 2 was pretty good and now here with book 3, we are back to awesome. 5/5 stars.

The Narration: Matthew Lloyd Davies is still doing a great job with this series. He does all these regional accents that really add to the story and I love how he handled Kiki’s ridiculous accent. I also enjoy his burly Viking voices for the Odinsons clan. He has a good range of voices with the ladies sounding like ladies and the guys sounding like guys. The pacing was perfect & there were no tech issues with the recording. 5/5 stars.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My opinions are 100% my own.

100% Pure Enjoyment

You've obviously read the previous books, so you are obviously going to read this one, and you should.

Absolutely brilliant books

Clever story, great characters and not a cliche in sight. These books are brilliant and hope there will be many more in the Sam Applewhite series

yet another great book in the series

this is yet another great book by Iain and Heide, which I really enjoyed.

the book is the third in the Sam Applewhite series and just like the other ones is very well written and the narrator really helped me get into the story.

Another fantastic tale

Another fantastic tale of of Sam Applewhite, a gruesome death and her viking friends.

When the scheming former starlet Kiki Lettuce (prounounced Le Tucces don't you know) and her side kick Antonio try to sell off her former stately homes valuables, she comes across the persistent civil service worker (come detective) Sam Applewhite.

Sam is torn between solving a burglary and protecting her viking friend Hilda, when she meets the enigmatic Kiki.

what ensues is a tale of a tug of war struggle for ownership of the viking sail ship Sandraker, a romance between Kiki and Sam's father and an investigation into her bizarre friends the vikings being nazi fascist in the sleepy town of Skegness!

I absolutely love this series of adventures and gruesome deaths!

So engaging!

Such a fun and interesting listen. It’s over the top, but it’s never too much, the characters are both outrageous and believable at the same time, and the plot puts them in funny and crazy situations at every turn… but because the writing is good, it never gets away from itself.

The narration is fantastic, there are characters which might have been difficult to listen to from a less skilled narrator, but he really draws the best out of how all of them are written.

It’s hard to define this in terms of genre, it’s a caper, urban fantasy, cosy mystery, crime, …. it packs a huge amount of content in one book.

Hilarious with a sprinkling of gruesome detail

An impossible burglary at a stately home, a viking ship, some aging Z listers, an anti social cactus and a racist tattoo.
Once again Sam finds herself tangled up in an array of bizzare coincidences thanks to her equally bizzare job.
It sounds like utter madness. It IS utter madness. And that's what makes the Sam Applewhite books so fantastic.
The characters have depth, the storylines are interwoven fantastically and the writing is spot on as always.
You can read this book as a stand alone but I'd start at the beggining of tne series to appreciate the lunacy that is Sam's life.

Perfect in every way

I thorough enjoyed this, fabulous story with the perfect narration, the only negative being I now have to wait for book four, and it’s a very long wait!