Lyn

Ho-hum story, lackluster narration

Revisado: 11-16-16

What did you like best about An Unsafe Pair of Hands? What did you like least?

Start with a dubious premise: long-time desk cop sent to boonies to get operational expertise; add a lot of hand-wringing internal dialogue; overlay that with an illogical plot; then filter the mixture through a mispronouncing narrator, and you get An Unsafe Pair of Hands.

What didn’t you like about George Orlando’s performance?

George Orlando has a pleasant delivery that's easy to listen to. He doesn't have any idiosyncrasies or verbal tics that distract from the story's flow.
However ...
- His performance is fraught with mispronunciations. Two examples: tableau and denouement, mispronounced every time.
- The story is set in a rural English constabulary, but the narration is (mostly) Midwestern American. That would probably have been tolerable if the entire narration had continued in a Midwestern American accent. (Incongruous, but tolerable.) But ...
- For some reason, Orlando decided to try some "local flavor" accents, with an execrable Scottish brogue for one character and a laughable "London" accent for another. The jarring intrusion of these accents into the "American" flow truly distracted.

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Disappointing narration

Revisado: 02-08-16

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

The Maggie Hope series offers archtypically "cozy" stories, so one doesn't expect much above 3 stars. The plots are strained, the characters are trimmed to fit and the author's understanding of the inner workings of the military and civil institutions into which she's placed those characters seems shallow. However, bringing back Donada Peters for the second and subsequent books would have enhanced the "star" value.

If you’ve listened to books by Susan Elia MacNeal before, how does this one compare?

The first book, Mr Churchill's Secretary, was a pleasant accompaniment to a long trip across the flat plains of Texas and Oklahoma. Sadly, I could not finish even the fourth chapter of the second book.

How could the performance have been better?

The narration suffers from two major deficiencies. - First, the narrative, story-telling segments are delivered in an unnatural rhythm and tone, with five- or six-word phrases not related to the text content, and a rise-and-fall pattern that is more suited to the nursery. - Second, someone decided to have the German characters speak to each other in German accents. Really cheesy accents.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

I'm continuing to read Princess Elizabeth's Spy in the Kindle edition. We'll have to wait a few more chapters to see if it the book is worth finishing.

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