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Office of the Dead

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Office of the Dead

By: Andrew Taylor
Narrated by: June Barrie
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Living in the British city of Rosington of the 1950s, Wendy finds herself penniless, jobless, and on the verge of divorce. She goes to stay with her friend, who seems to have everything Wendy lacks. But a decades-old mystery lingers, and the shadow of death seeps through from turn-of-the-century Rosington, portending tragedy.©2001 Andrew Taylor (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Genre Fiction Modern Detectives Mystery Small Town & Rural Suspense Thriller & Suspense Urban Fiction
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Critic reviews

"Maiden ladies who would make Miss Marple smile and villains as vile as Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter populate this witty, urbane but dark third volume in Taylor's Roth Trilogy." (Publishers Weekly)
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This is the first part of a trilogy of books that starts in the 1950s. The early part of the book moves slowly as the characters are introduced and fleshed out and one might think it was going to be a simple family saga. However, after a while a mystery, with its origins in the pre-War period, emerges and one realizes that the story is much more complex and gripping. The structure of the book suits being an audio version as the story is largely told chronologically by a first person narrator remembering the past. It is excellently read by June Barry. I shall certainly listen to the next two parts.

Slowly a mystery emerges

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Confusingly, this is either the first book in a trilogy or the last, depending on whose comments you read.

If it were the last then perhaps the purpose of this book is for answers to the mysteries in the previous books to drop into place. Perhaps those reading it as the third book in the trilogy are constantly emitting sighs of satisfaction as they say to themselves "Ah, that's the reason why that other thing happened in book 1 or 2".

I read it first and found it extremely slow and lacking any tension or narrative drive. For the first 80% of the book, nothing really happens. The narrator stumbles across a couple of unexplained facts, but so what? The narrator is a dispassionate observer with no skin in the game and the author gives us no real mystery to drive the story forward.

As a standalone book, this doesn't work. Perhaps it does in the context of the trilogy.

The narration is excellently and convincingly done.

A story devoid of tension, pace or narrative drive

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It must be an extraordinary writer who can so completely obsorbe a reader/listener into a story that has a mundane foundation. I suppose that helps the characters shine and make their doings so compelling. Fantastic listen.

Andrew Taylor has a gift of drawing me in.

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Attention to detail first that period ( l was 5) and author writing from woman’s perspective

The narrator was perfect for 1950’s story

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I’m so pleased that I read the trilogy in the order intended by the author. Each book was like scraping away layers, culminating in this last discovery. I felt it was a satisfying conclusion ( or perhaps beginning!) though I now want to re read the first books in the light of what I now know.

Enjoyable, well written and different.

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