The Circular Staircase

By: Mary Roberts Rinehart

Narrated by: Cindy Hardin

"This is the story of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in the city, took a furnished house for the summer out of town, and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous." So begins The Circular Staircase, a book which has been hailed as the best novel by the most important American woman mystery writer. Rachel Innes is relieved when Gertrude and Halsey arrive to keep their dear old aunt company and allow her the courtesy of a decent night's sleep. Unfortunately, the explosive sound of a revolver shot the next night shatters Rachel's hopes. And the body at the foot of the circular staircase insures many sleepless nights to follow.©1986 Jimcin Recordings (P)2004 Brian J. Killavey

Monotone reading with weird background noise

Besides the monotone narration, this audio book also has some barely audible (by me) unintelligible babbling noise in the background. Listening to it was like the old days of bad land line telephone calls that picked up noise from other conversations, radio stations, or even running sewing machines or wood working machinery. Very nostalgic but it detracted from the listening experience.

Bad audio, boring story

This story is so boring. The narrator tries to make the best of it, but with this poor quality audio it´s an impossible task...from time to time it sounds as if she is reading over the phone, or worse. Not recommended

Narration is Awful

I hesitate to condemn the entire book based solely on the narrator's (lack) of performance. But, it was that bad. For me, that's saying something. Usually, I can get wrapped up in a book and overlook less than stellar narration. In this case, however, the reader's monotone killed the whole experience for me.