The Tolls of Death

Medieval West Country Mystery, Book 17

By: Michael Jecks

Narrated by: Mark Elstob

Length: 13 hrs and 1 min

Publisher's Summary

After their gruelling journeys to Galicia and Scilly, Baldwin and Simon are at last back on the English mainland. Eager to get home, they set off on horseback but only get as far as Cardinham on Bodmin Moor. Here, they are detained by the castellan who requires their help to solve two murders on the estate. The first victim is a widow, found dead with her two children. The second is Serlo, the miller, who has recently been discovered embezzling castle money taken in tolls. As Baldwin and Simon begin a double investigation, they must look beneath the village friendships and family loyalties to find an evil killer and secure Cardinham's safety.

©2004 Michael Jecks (P)2020 Soundings

Mystery in a medieval setting

A very enjoyable mystery. It kept me guessing. There’s so much backstory and background to both the characters and the medieval setting that I got happily lost in all the wonderful details. The mystery was simply the icing on the cake…Arguably, the narrator’s pitch for female voices is absurd and somewhat jarring. But the rest and all other voices are done very well, so much so that it rather makes up, for all the women speaking through their noses. After a long time, a medieval mystery on Audible that was time spent completely enchanted - every minute of it.

Very good

The storyline was very good and I loved the twist at the end. The book would have been perfect but for the narrator's female voices! But don't let that stop you from getting this book you'll be glad you did 🙂

Tolls too much

I found this novel extremely complicated there were so many different people who could’ve committed crimes but in the end I couldn’t decide who done what an eye gave up.The overall performance was superb and the book was well readThe story was compelling and wonderful.The narrator was superb

Hmmm, not sure.

This is the first of Jenk’s books I’ve listened to and I’m not really sure if I will listen to others. The bits of history and medieval life are very good. The story is intriguing, yet quite gruesome in parts and the author’s treatment of some characters is stereotypical.
The performance is good during the narrative portions and when a character is having an internal dialogue. However, the women characters all sound like cartoonish crones whether or not she is peasant or lady. Some of the male characters sound out of place, especially Warrin - who sounds like a really bad impersonation of Marlon Brando. The child character voices are particularly grating.
So, I’m not really sure if the issue is with the prose or the performance. You shall have to listen and make up your own mind

Sketchily drawn characters

There are the usual large number of supporting characters in this but they, especially the women, are so sketchily drawn that they merge into one. The narrator generally does a good job but his characterisation of older women as Monty Python style crones is annoying

the best

As a big follower of Michael Jecks this is true to form the way he weaves his characters is marvellous