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The Axeman's Jazz

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The Axeman's Jazz

By: Ray Celestin
Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
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About this listen

New Orleans, 1919. As a dark serial killer - The Axeman - stalks the city, three individuals set out to unmask him. As Michael, Luca and Ida each draw closer to discovering the killer's identity, the Axeman himself will issue a challenge to the people of New Orleans: play jazz or risk becoming the next victim. And as the case builds to its crescendo, the sky will darken and a great storm will loom over the city.

©2014 Ray Celestin (P)2014 W. F. Howes Ltd Crime Fiction Crime Thrillers Fiction Historical Mystery Thriller & Suspense Thriller

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All stars
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I had been wanting to listen/ read this for so long! Utterly enthralling throughout the entirety

Incredibly engrossing

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I'm sure I would have enjoyed it more if I'd given it more time. could only listen in bite sized chunks. I found the story quite confusing at points, and found it difficult to follow.

story a little complex for me.

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The first of the very good quartet but the least good. Overall the narration is ok but the narrator’s character voices are poor and almost caricatures - Scottish and Irish accents are straight out of the Simpsons and female voices are generally camp.

Well worth listening but let down by narrator

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Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

I was looking forward to listening to this book but after 90 minutes, although the story is promising, the narration is poor. The voices used veer between a poor rendition of Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry and characters from the Simpsons. The Scots and Irish accents of the police personnel wander all over the place. It occurred to me that Ida was going to be a key character in the investigation of the murders and I just couldn't stand listening to the whiny voice being used for her so I'm afraid this book is going back. Honestly, when we read a book we don't take on a dozen different voices. Why do it for an audio book, especially if the reader is not up to the job? If the writing is good enough, it should be clear who is speaking. Male readers inevitably make a poor fist of female voices so time to stop this nonsense and just have someone read in a their own voice.

Promising story but poor narration

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While I enjoyed the story, I felt it could have used one less storyline for a more elegant flow. The Louis and Ida plotline felt like overkill, but otherwise the story itself was alright. Unfortunately the narrator was the wrong choice. I'm sure he would be great on another book, but not this one.

Good, but a bit too complicated

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I did enjoy this book but it was probably 4 hours longer than it needs to be and although the narrator was probably good at American accents (I am British so i couldn't say), the Scottish accent was awful! Set in 1919 New Orleans, a murderer is about and various people are trying to catch him. Some of these characters are better than others and the story is quite slow as I say, but generally speaking it was quite a good listen and I am going to finish the series so it can't have been that bad!

Quite a good listen but not my favourite

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It's a slow burner, but once this plot got going I couldn't stop listening. Superbly told and suspenseful right up to the very last moment, with all the history and charm of New Orleans.

The best murder mystery I've ever experienced

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This wasn’t about exactly what I thought it would be. It was far better than I’d imagined. The performance is brilliant and the narrative gives you a lot to keep up with. I purchased after watching AHS Coven, following that depiction of The New Orleans Axe Man. The depth of detail on the political and racial drivers at work on New Orleans’s society 100 years ago is perfect and resonates deeply with the current climate around the BLM movement.

Vivid and surprising

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Very interesting and exciting story. It was wonderfully presented with the reader using so many authentic sounding accents and voices.

Brilliant..

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An intriguing story and I wanted to know what happened but
a) breadth of characters (and viewpoints) led to it feeling muddled and lacking cohesion.
(and what was the purpose of Louis Armstong being a character?)
b) needs a good edit to add tension. Not much suspense, even when characters were in danger.

Narration - accents are hard, but important. The Scottish character sounded more like an Ulsterman than a Scot.

Intriguing, but little suspense.

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