Introducing the king of detectives

I received a free copy from the translator, because he's an awesome person. I promised a review, but if it's good it's because the book deserves it :)

First things first: is it very weird to listen to a book with a narrator you know. Especially as I haven't actually spoken to him for years (because Facebook).

This is a good old fashioned detective story. More like Sherlock Holmes than Hercule Poirot, but like both, boy does Chantecoq have a ego! It felt like he definitely needed to keep reminding us that he is the King of Detectives, when he could have shown us how brilliant he is instead. But I did like the cast of characters and hope that the next book as more of the understatedly competent Colette (Chantecoq's daughter)

The mystery kept me engaged, I won't spoiler the details, but I will say that 95% of it is pretty predicable, the final plot twist did take me by surprise. Thinking back over the course of the story, there are sufficient "clues" left that I guess its just my lack of brain power that didn't spot it. Or I was lulled into a false sense of "oh, it's pretty obvious" . It definitely falls into the "cosy mystery" category still though

Translation: The story flowed well, and there were enough French bits left in (e.g. M. Chantecoq, la belle countess) to give it the right Parisian vibe. I did struggle with some of the written clues, but I don't particularly cope well with written clues in an audio book anyway.

Audio book: Less noticeable on earphones, but definitely noticeable on turning the volume up on speakers there is a definite "hiss" and white noise present in the background. I guess that's because this was recorded during during lockdown? The narration was pretty good - lots of distinct accents and tones to distinguish characters. However, he does sometimes drop back into the "default" voice occasionally. But the Brummie accent one of the gendarmes had made me laugh

Looking forward to the next mystery

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