Another addition to #BritishCrimeClassicsChallenge
- Narrated by: Zehra Jane Naqvi
I have to say I enjoyed this book almost entirely because of the awesome narration of the audio version. The narrator brought the crazy character of Ann Beddingfield to life and I actually liked her as opposed to chastising her weirdness in my head.
I remember reading this ages ago in high school and I can see why I thought it was strange then and told everyone who would listen that I disliked it. Ann Beddingfield is in a fix. She has no money or prospects, all she has is a yearning for adventure and the need to feel like the heroine like the things she has seen on screen. Parallelly there is an international plot being unravelled and she plops herself in the middle of it all. Her ideas are far fetched and dramatic but she is very frank and knows the way she’s thinking or behaving is not necessarily normal. This acceptance of her thought process would not have satisfied me when I was younger but now, being older I can feel a little patronising and pat Ann on the head (figuratively, obviously).
The entire story consists of some lucky coincidences and chance meetings and ultimately some interesting plotting on both sides. There are fighting scenes as well as more docile bantering amongst the warring parties. It is, on the whole, entertaining and as long as that is all you expect from it, a fun book.
My last KU review was: The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde and my queue now looks like this:
