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Divorcing Jack

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Divorcing Jack

By: Colin Bateman
Narrated by: Adam Moore
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Summary

Dan Starkey is a young journalist in Belfast, who shares with his wife, Patricia, a prodigious appetite for drinking and dancing. Then Dan meets a beautiful and apparently impoverished student. And then, terrifyingly, she is murdered. Is it because she was not exactly who she claimed to be? Is it the IRA? A Protestant extremist group? A jealous lover? Before long, Dan is a target himself.…

©1995 Colin Bateman (P)2013 W F Howes Ltd Crime Fiction Espionage Genre Fiction Mystery Political Spies & Politics Suspense Thriller & Suspense Funny
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Critic reviews

"Hysterically funny one-liners and sinister Kafkaesque developments..." ( Daily Mail)
" Divorcing Jack is richly paranoid and very funny, it manages to say more about the Troubles in 280 vivid pages than reams of earnest reportage ever could." ( Sunday Times)
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Love Colin Bateman's books. The humour, pathos and plots are always good value and good listening.

So funny

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The performance is stilted and doesn't flow well, which is a shame, because this is a great comic novel. It is a dark, black comedy and there are signs that it's not ageing well, but if viewed in context it's fine.

Great story, let down by performance

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I read this book many years ago and decided to give the audiobook a try. Bad move! The narrator seemed to think it would be acceptable to portray a menacing terrorist in the style of a cartoon grasshopper having its tummy tickled. And without wishing to give anything away, this book’s title is based on a misheard name. When the narrator finally gets to that part of the tale he mispronounces it, making a mockery of the whole thing. A small child could have done a better job, although the gritty nature of the book doesn’t quite lend itself to that. Buy the paperback.

Enjoyable story ripped to shreds by a woefully inept narration

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I have read all of the Mystery Man novels and loved them so I was quite keen to dive into the Dan Starky series. Unfortunately I was a little disappointed. This book was nowhere near as funny or engaging as MM, although it was a good listen. I wish I had started here as I would still have the MM series to get to.

If you haven't read Bateman Start here...

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What made the experience of listening to Divorcing Jack the most enjoyable?

I don't really know what to make of this book. The way it is written is quite lighthearted and often very very funny, but the story is far from amusing, and I found it difficult to square the one with the other. An odd one, definitely, and although I might be tempted to try the next in the series, I don't think I'll be listening to it anytime soon.

Rather an uncomfortable listen

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