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The Poisoned Quill

The Detective Lavender Mysteries, Book 8

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The Poisoned Quill

By: Karen Charlton
Narrated by: Russ Williams
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About this listen

Ealing: August 1814

Detective Stephen Lavender's wife and children are spending a glorious summer in the picturesque village of Ealing. When the vicar's wife is poisoned, Lavender is asked to review the case. He soon realizes something rotten is festering at the heart of this rural idyll.

Convinced the wrong man has been arrested and the killer is still at large, Lavender is also disturbed to discover someone is sending the local gentry vile letters containing outrageous accusations. Could the same hand that drips such poison from their quill also have administered that fatal dose of arsenic?

Fortunately, Constable Ned Woods and his family are visiting nearby Brentford to solve a perplexing family mystery of their own. When the body of a second woman is found, Lavender seeks Woods' help to unravel the tangled web of lies and deceit spun by the killer.

Distracted by these crimes, the two men are unaware of the sinister danger stalking their own children—until it's almost too late. But help comes from an unlikely source, bringing with it resolution to a question that has haunted Woods since childhood and reminding Lavender that family must always come first.

©2025 Karen Charlton (P)2026 Tantor Media Historical Mystery Detective Village
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I was so looking forward to the next instalment but I found the narration really off putting. There appeared to be no differences between the characters voices. I felt it was very monotone, which made listening to the story difficult. Hope in the future they can redo it with the original narrator.

Narration poor.

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Being an avid fan of both Karen Charlton and the inspector lavender mystery novels I was eagerly anticipating the release of the new book. I can only presume that the author wasn’t consulted about the change in narration, if she was I don’t know what she was thinking. Never before have I heard such a monosyllabic narration of a novel on audible. Completely ruined what I presume was a great story, I can’t attest to this as I had to give up a quarter of the way in, I just couldn’t bear it any longer. I’m sure he is a very nice man but narrator he isn’t!,,

Awful narration

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Having been a fan of the Detective Lavender stories with Michael Page narrating I was saddened to see a different narrator and unfortunately even more when I heard the new narrator. The person sounds like they are talking through their nose most of the time and witha fairly slow speed of reading I have found myself having to speed the narration up to make it bearable to listen to. Please for the next book change narrators either to the original narrator or someone new.

Awful Narration

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Always enjoy the Detective Lavender stories but this was totally ruined by the utterly awful narration. No attempt was made to give the characters any accents, it might as well have been read by “Siri”

Terrible Narrator

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The change of narrator is a disaster in my opinion. I loved the earlier books, but I’m thinking of returning this one because the narrator is butchering the story. The narrator of the previous books used very different voices for the main characters which contributed enormously to the enjoyment of the novels. The pace of the previous narrator was also excellent. This new narrator’s delivery is flat, monotonous and there is no distinction between the various characters. The pacing is also tedious. Very, very disappointing.

Terrible Narration

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