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The Pleasures of Men

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The Pleasures of Men

By: Kate Williams
Narrated by: Jane Collingwood, Karina Fernandez, Penelope Rawlins, Andrew Wincott, Harriet Carmichael, Clare Corbett, Alex Tregear, Various
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About this listen

Spitalfields, 1840. Catherine lives with her Uncle in a rambling house in London's East End, with little to occupy the days beyond her own colourful imagination. Then news reaches her of a disturbing murderer known as The Man of Crows. Catherine becomes more and more involved as she hungrily devours the news, and is soon snared in a deadly trap, where nothing is as it first appears... 

As the murders continue, Catherine gradually realises she is snared in a deadly trap, where nothing is as it first appears... and behind the lies are secrets more deadly than anything her imagination can conjure.

The full narrator list includes: Clare Corbett, Roger May, Karina Fernandez, Andrew Wincott, Alex Tregear, Harriet Carmichael, Penelope Rawlins and Jane Collingwood.  

©2012 Kate Williams (P)2012 W F Howes Ltd Suspense Thriller & Suspense Murder Crime Fiction
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I persevered with this book because the characters were quite intrguing and the storyline following the murders of the lower class girls in London was interesting. I did not understand why the main female character was so tormented by her past and the regression on many occasions to previous experiences/dreams/fantasies made the whole read very disjointed. Having finally discovered the truth of her past, she simply runs away and the final 3 chapters on her life in France as a teacher seem to bear no relevance to the rest of the story whatsover and I have no idea why it was included. Unfortunately this one book by Kate Williams has put me off reading any future ones.

glad to get to the end

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What would have made The Pleasures of Men better?

I would have preferred more progress through the plot.

What will your next listen be?

Non-fiction

How did the narrator detract from the book?

All the narrators sounded like the same person putting on different voices, every one of them forced and unbelievable.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

I was disappointed with the book: I think I was expecting a solidly mysterious story such as Wilkie Collins might have written.

Any additional comments?

Some of the passages were very clever, in particular the cryptic description of Lady Eduarda seducing her maid (you could just about tell where, in the text, it happened) - and in the same way, the technique of slightly obscuring the exact moment of death of the murder victims.

Hard work

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I really enjoyed the audio version but the story itself was not for me unfortunately

Multi cast audio was good

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This is appalling writing, and a tedious unbelievable plot. The primary narrator is the pits as well (breathy,drawling monotony). I can't believe I listened all the way to the end. I think I was listening in disbelief, hoping it would get better, but it just got worse.

Dreadful

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The narrators do a wonderful job, but even so, after 5 hours of listening I gave up, something I very rarely do, as I simply couldn't follow the plot and had no idea what was going on. Perhaps one to listen too in sections of 3-4 hours.

Difficult to follow

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