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The Affair of the Thirty Nine-Cufflinks

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The Affair of the Thirty Nine-Cufflinks

By: James Anderson
Narrated by: Cornelius Garrett
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Summary

 Understandably, Lord Burford had some misgivings about hosting another house party at Alderley, his beautiful country mansion. After all, the previous two could at best be described as disastrous, since a couple of their guests were bumped off during their stay on each occasion. But with family members travelling down for the funeral of an elderly relative, the Earl really had no choice but to offer them accommodation.

And it didn't take long for things to start to go wrong. One of the guests claimed she had knowledge that would ruin the others' reputations, but nobody took her seriously enough to take offence.

At least, not until her body was found...

©2006 The Estate of James Anderson (P)2014 Audible, Inc. Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Mystery Suspense Thriller & Suspense Fiction
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I have read a James Anderson before and felt it was a bit too much of a farce to feel very Agatha Christie like, but this book contained more real characters (although still quite exaggerated) and a more likely story. I like that the detective always solves it not the amateur who 'gives it a go'. I'm not a huge fan of the farcical evening movements but it at least confused me such a lot. This narration is mostly very sharp - a couple of times at the beginning some characters accents mix slightly. However Wilkins is brilliant and totally conjures the image of the description throughout. I will look out for another one in the future. These books would make a fabulous dramatisation.

Great Mystery with lots of red herrings

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Great period set light murder mystery. If you like Agatha Christie and similar then you'll most likely enjoy this third installment in the series. Enjoyable characters and twists.

Very enjoyable murder mystery!

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What a shame that this is the final instalment of the series. James Anderson was such an excellent writer! And so hilarious. I was roaring with laughter at Florrie's acerbic comments, Chief Inspector Wilkins's seeming incompetence, Lord Burford's perpetual lack of understanding of what is happening, Merryweather's unshakeable serenity, and quirks and weirdness of all the other characters. The novel is also flawlessly plotted and the most gripping out of the series.
I can't recommend this highly enough! Absolute perfection!

Hilarious and brilliant! Loved it!

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I loved this book. It kept me interested from start to finish. Good old fashioned whodunnit. Brilliantly narrated. Can't recommend enough.

Brilliant

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I do so enjoy this novel. It's a lovely satire of the Golden Age of Detective fiction, with all the things you'd expect.

Blackmail, torrid affairs, loose lipped servants, the death of a wealthy person, the will, it's all here.

And it's all told with some of the more remarkably 1930s-esque prose to not be written by PG Wodehouse.

HOWEVER, I'd caution against this audiobook version.

Not because it is badly performed or anything like that...

But because the sheer number of characters makes it incredibly difficult to keep track of who is who.

This may just be my issue, but I've never been one for remembering names that are told to me, so not seeing anything written down, and just hearing the constant barrage of different characters introduced in shorts bursts by Chapter 8 alone is a tad overwhelming.

It got so that I was completely lost as to who was who for a time.

So just a word of warning to those like me, the print version might be a lot better. It'll allow you to assign voices to the characters, and not have to try and distinguish between the performer's very similar vocal performances.

Excellently Written and Well-Performed - BUT

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