Surfeit of Suspects cover art

Surfeit of Suspects

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for £5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Surfeit of Suspects

By: George Bellairs
Narrated by: David Thorpe
Try Standard free

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £13.68

Buy Now for £13.68

About this listen

Following a mysterious explosion, the offices of Excelsior Joinery Company are no more; the three directors are killed and the peace of a quiet town in Surrey lies in ruins. When the supposed cause of an ignited gas leak is dismissed and the presence of dynamite revealed, Superintendent Littlejohn of Scotland Yard is summoned to the scene. But beneath the sleepy veneer of Evingden lies a hotbed of deep-seated grievances. Confounding Littlejohn's investigation is an impressive cast of suspicious persons, each concealing their own ax to grind.

©1964 George Bellairs (P)2019 Soundings Classics Mystery Traditional Detectives Fiction Detective
All stars
Most relevant
This is a murder mystery with a slightly different twist, with the underlying motivation being surprisingly current for a book written sixty years ago.

The plot is unremarkable, though sufficient to hold the book together; but the real charm is in the combination of the writer's deft way of evoking a character with a brief description, and the narrator's absolutely superb ability to give every character a distinctive 'voice', complete with accent and intonation, that is entirely recognisable and believable. The combination makes the book a delightful ramble through a time populated with the kind of characters I can dimly remember from my early childhood. (The book is set in the 1950's or early 1960's.)

I have seldom heard such skilled narration: the book is worth getting just for the pleasure of hearing this panoply of characters march past. Bravo David Thorpe!

Really superb narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I enjoyed the story even though it isn't the best and was fairly predicable - I do like classic old detective stories but this one is a bit hackneyed. But it was an easy confortable listen which is what I like just before bed. However, making it more insipid than it needed to be was some of the stilted mannerisms/accents that the narrator chose to give to some of the key characters. Which was a bit irratating.

An ok listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
There were so many twists and turns that I had to listen three times and each time I enjoyed it more.
Brilliant plots and excellent characters. Great story.

Enjoyed this book each time I listened to it!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
George Bellairs is not to everyone's taste, but if you enjoy his stories, as I do, the this is well worth a listen. Set in small-town England the story quickly gets to grips with setting the scene for the crime and defines a closed set of suspects for Inspector Littlejohn to sort through in order to identify the criminal. Of course each suspect has a back story and each of these sheds light on the central crime and, eventually, the person who committed it. As with all Bellairs stories the characters are slightly exaggerated to emphasise their strong or conversely weak personalities and this provides for a degree of humour throughout. David Thorpe's narration was excellent and he made it easy to tell the different characters apart. However, for me, one question remained unanswered, "How did the villain manage to set off the dynamite without detonators and a timing clock?" Maybe my attention wandered for a moment.

Classic Bellairs

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I always enjoy a Belairs book and this is a good one. Interesting plot, good scene setting and some nice humour. The reading is a bit melodramatic

Enjoyable Belairs yarn

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews