The English Spy

By: Daniel Silva

Narrated by: George Guidall

Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's Summary

Number one New York Times best-selling author Daniel Silva delivers another stunning thriller in his latest action-packed tale of high-stakes international intrigue featuring the inimitable Gabriel Allon.

She is an iconic member of the British royal family, beloved for her beauty and charitable works, resented by her former husband and his mother, the queen of England.

When a bomb explodes aboard her holiday yacht, British intelligence turns to one man to track down her killer: legendary spy and assassin Gabriel Allon.

Gabriel's target is Eamon Quinn, a master bomb maker and mercenary of death who sells his services to the highest bidder. Fortunately Gabriel does not pursue him alone; at his side is Christopher Keller, a British commando turned professional assassin who knows Quinn's murderous handiwork all too well.

And though Gabriel does not realize it, he is stalking an old enemy - a cabal of evil that wants nothing more than to see him dead. Gabriel will find it necessary to oblige them, for when a man is out for vengeance, death has its distinct advantages....

©2015 Daniel Silva (P)2015 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

This was Masterful

This was an outstanding piece of craftsmanship. By a Author clearly at the top of his game. I never once put it down.

Gripping and complex

My goodness this is such a gripping story and so well narrated
I usually listen to audible books while doing something else, but that's impossible with this compelling story
I loved it

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Great audiobook

This is the first Daniel Silva novel I've bought but loved it and it will not be the last. George Guidall deserves a mention as was a good narrator too.

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

Not bad, a little turgid.

Not bad but the endless, seemingly irrelevant conversations between new characters meant the plot had a glacial pace. It took several goes and several books in between to finish.

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

so good I listened again straight away

great story, full of wit and yet the contrast of brutality and tenderness of professional killers is astounding.

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

Excellent

Excellent, such a good writer could not stop listening, look forward to the next one

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

Probably one of Silva's best Novels

A strong story that will keep U transfixed & applause to the very end.
An superb narration by George Guidall. Probably the finest of them All.

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

Dreadful narration

The narration in this book was dreadul, it was hard to distinguish who was speaking beacuse they all basically sounded the same regardless of which country they were from. Having an American trying to speak in an English or Irish accent is a big mistake. It made it veru difficult to follow who was speaking and I had to persevere to get to the end.

Excellent thriller<br />

One of the best I have read by Daniel Silva. Generous in size and yet always fast paced.

Thoroughly gripping!

This story kept me gripped from start to finish, and left me with the knowledge that I'm going to enjoy many more of Daniel Silva's Gabriel Allon stories!

Best Male Narrator: on what planet?

This book won Best Male narrator in the Audio Publishers Association Audie awards for a prolific American narrator called George Guidall. This is a review of this audiobook, not of George Guidall’s performances elsewhere: he might be fantastic on those for all I know. However, given this performance in The English Spy I am not tempted to find out, and this I’m afraid lies at the door of the APA’s choice. I can’t imagine many listeners, drawn to listen to the 'best male narrator’ by this award, will wish to actively pursue any more of the like. It's a shot in the foot for audiobooks: to me, it only begged the question, if he’s the best then what about the rest?

Firstly I’m am a great lover of audiobooks and thought I’d like to listen to the Best Male narrator as voted by the Audio Publishers Association. I didn’t imagine that the book would be so poor.

Turns out this is a spy/espionage 'wet holiday read' which is apparently Book 16 in a series. It’s kind of John Le Carre without any skill in plotting or characterisation, not quite Le Carre with a lobotomy but close. It’s seductively linear initially but strangely confusing, and ’so what’-ish by the time you're half way through. It becomes extremely boring very quickly, and thereafter time hangs very heavily.

I have soldiered on and listened to the whole book in an effort to work out why audiobook publishers would vote the reader Best Male Narrator for this work. Whatever it was that influenced their choice it was nothing to do with this read. It was not transporting, it did not excite, it did not excel in any area of storytelling. So what gives here, with the Best Audiobook Narrator (Male) title? …it must be either a contempt for the listener, an attempt to shape expectations to a very low standard, an attempt to boost sales of a long series, or conceivably to reward the narrator for better work elsewhere. I don’t know. It’s totally inexplicable.

What’s good about the read? Well, let’s see: he maintains a good pace which is probably quite easy when you don’t inflect your voice. I suppose I have to credit the fact that despite the repetitiousness of the plot George Guidall grinds it out and gets through it but he doesn’t add any value. It’s hard to describe but it starts to feel like an audiobook version of ‘muzak’: after an hour of listening to it, you’re just hearing words like Glock, phrases like ‘frowned at the screen’, ‘suddenly he was on his feet and running’ etc etc etc etc.

What’s so un-stellar about the read? Unsurprisingly this book trots around the globe and is full of characters from Northern Ireland, Southern Ireland, Russia, England, Israel, Corsica and Iran etc. etc. All the characters speak in a kind of mushy, 'cod international' low and unconfident growl. The Irish characters share an occasionally recognisable Irish vowel sound: that’s as close as you’re going to get to any differentiation between north and south, they all sound the same, that is, unconvincing and frankly, apologetic. The English characters are even more risible: it’s kind of the ghost of a feeling of an American trying to do English, in a theatre production in Iowa where arguably it doesn’t matter. The Russians, Iranians, Israelis blend into a global accent ‘mulch' which makes the monotone delivery even more unpalatable.

‘Armagh' which occurs on numerous occasions is pronounced with an accent on the second syllable and not on the first, as here.

I’m now interested to listen to the Best Female Narrator's title and trying to work that one out!

3 of 6 people found this review helpful