The Assassin's Curse

Blackthorn Key, Book 3

By: Kevin Sands

Narrated by: Napoleon Ryan

Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's Summary

Christopher Rowe is back and there are more puzzles, riddles, and secrets to uncover in this third novel of the award-winning Blackthorn Key series.

Wherever Christopher Rowe goes, adventure - and murder - follows. Even a chance to meet King Charles ends in a brush with an assassin.

All that's recovered from the killer is a coded message with an ominous sign-off: more attempts are coming. So when Christopher's code-breaking discovers the attack's true target, he and his friends are ordered to Paris to investigate a centuries-old curse on the French throne. And when they learn an ancient treasure is promised to any assassin who succeeds, they realize the entire royal family is at stake - as well as their own lives.

In the third heart-pounding installment of the award-winning Blackthorn Key series, Christopher, Tom, and Sally face new codes, puzzles, and traps as they race to find the hidden treasure before someone else is murdered.

©2017 Kevin Sands. All rights reserved. (P)2017 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Voices

I wasn’t expecting a new narrator and didn’t like the sudden change of the characters voices.

Bad narrator

The narrator change just didn’t work, I will have to read the paper version instead.

Substituting Ryan for Panthaki was wrong

Ray Panthaki was perfect ... Napolean Ryan has changed "Christopher Rowe's" accent from a Londoner to one from Manchester and more importantly, now everybody seems fake: Christopher lacks inflection in his narrative voice, the older men all (Ashcombe, Blackthorne and the King, particularly) sound like mocking caricatures of men specifically designed to be used in funny commercials, and all the adult men have the same bass/baritone resonance. It's jarring and pulls you out of the story which, by the way, is an EXCELLENT read. Ray Panthaki was perfect; this seems like an extended audio version of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" as presented by Robin Leach. It's highly unlikely I will get the next audiobook if Napolean Ryan is reading: I'd prefer Ray Panthaki, but even if he's not on it, I can't keep wondering if the narrator is about to say something about "Champagne wishes", so no Ryan.

I miss the old voice

Amazing book! Love this author. I prefer the guy who read the first two over this guy. But I got used to it after a little while.

Horrible narrator

The first two in the series were very gripping and the narrator brought the characters to life. This narrator does not.

everything is great about this book 😀😀😀❤❤❤❤💓

love it. very well written and narrated highly suggest reading. read the amazing first book

the assassin's Curse

Napoleon Ryan is fantastic. his brilliant narration and performance made the story more exciting. Author was very lucky to have Napoleon Ryan narrate the story.

How Awesome this book is

This book was amazing. I love the whole book series it is awesome. I would recommend you should have only 9+ listen or read this.

Sadly Ruined by New Narrator

I have yet to get through this book from the series due to the terrible narration. The first two books were so fun and well narrated by Tom P. and I loved the story so I'm going to buy the paper back and enjoy it with my own narration. I will not ... buy the new release because they used Napolean rather than Tom. Luke Daniel or Will Weaton or someone who can read without making almost every sentence sound like a question would do much better.

amazingly amazing

really god narrator and great book like this narrator so much better then the others the overall story I would give 20 stars!!!