A Death at Fountains Abbey

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Raven Scholar, a thrilling and gripping historical crime thriller

De: Antonia Hodgson

Narrado por: Joseph Kloska

**Buy The Raven Scholar now - a masterfully woven tale of imperial intrigue from Sunday Times bestselling Antonia Hodgson**

'In a tale that more than matches its predecessors for pace and atmosphere, Hawkins is forced into confrontation with a psychopathic killer. . .hugely enjoyable' Sunday Times

'Hodgson has a knack for convincing dialogue that crackles with period cadence and flavour' Daily Mail

'Something new in the world of historical crime fiction, with mesmerising detail and atmosphere' Financial Times

'You will burn.'

Late spring, 1728. Fresh from his escape from the gallows, Thomas Hawkins has arrived in Yorkshire with his ward, Sam Fleet. But death still has a hand upon his shoulder, even in such idyllic surroundings.

John Aislabie, Tom's reluctant host, is being tormented by anonymous letters threatening murder. A disgraced politician, Aislabie certainly has plenty of enemies. But, trapped in a house haunted by old tragedies, Tom begins to suspect that the danger lies much closer to home.

Someone is playing a subtle and deadly game of revenge, years in the planning. And now Tom is standing in their way. . .

READERS ARE OBSESSED WITH ANTONIA HODGSON'S INCREDIBLE SERIES
'The best Tom Hawkins so far!' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'A devil of a good story' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'A rollicking yarn' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'A third fantastic book set in Georgian England' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'Absolutely breathtaking' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
'Superb from start to finish' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐©2016 Antonia Hodgson

Reseñas de la Crítica

Through an admirable amount of research the award-winning author has used real people, events and settings to create a delightfully enjoyable standalone thriller. It crackles with wit and charm and cements Hawkins' place as the most lovable rogue in historical fiction.

A tale that more than matches its predecessors for pace and atmosphere.

I love Antonia Hodgson's slightly wicked sense of humour and it's put to good use here and her clear affection for Tom and Kitty and Sam, as well as her enthusiasm for the period, is infectious. This is such a strong series and I hope it goes on and on.

Antonia Hodgson weaves a fantastic tale of both fact and fiction and emerges with a thoroughly enjoyable romp of a story.

A cracking murder mystery...The writing is clever, witty, eloquent and gripping, a real pleasure to read...you can almost feel that you are living in 18th century London. Historical fiction fans will lap this up, as did I.

A glorious Georgian mystery...irresistible (Essie Fox, Sunday Times Crime Club)

Hodgson's firm grip of characterisation and plot produces an occasionally outrageous, mischievous, entertaining and immensely enjoyable adventure story from its dramatic prologue to its chilling finale.

A delightfully enjoyable standalone thriller. It crackles with wit and charm and cements Hawkins'place as the most lovable rogue in historical fiction *****

Sharp, funny and wearing its antiquity lightly, this is historical crime that contemporary readers can relate to

A new book in Antonia Hodgson's Tom Hawkins series is a longed-for event and A Death at Fountains Abbey satisfies that longing from start to finish

Excellent, full of historical details and narrative verve. The characters are multi-layered, and the plot skips along rapidly ... I'm already looking forward to number four

An immensely enjoyable adventure story from its dramatic prologue to its chilling finale

A page-turner full of suspense and intrigue. I loved it!

Antonia Hodgson has a real feel for how people thought and spoke at the time - and God knows, that's a rare talent (Andrew Taylor, author of The Fires of London)

Something new in the world of historical crime fiction, with mesmerising detail and atmosphere

Hodgson has a knack for convincing dialogue that crackles with period cadence and flavour

Hodgson shows the seamy underbelly of Georgian London, and does for this era what C.J. Sansom and Rory Clements have done for Tudor times

Historical fiction just doesn't get any better than this (Jeffrey Deaver)

At times Hodgson even rivals Dickens

Any historical fiction enthusiast who isn't a Tom Hawkins fan, has probably just not read any yet

A murder/mystery in Yorkshire

This is my favorite book of the series by far, but I do think it is slightly due to the fact that this is the first book Tom has not been thrown into jail. To be fair, he is locked up in this book, but think more house arrest than like the previous books where he ended up in the Marshalsea and Newgate. This is practically luxurious in comparison. This is a mystery book that takes place on a country estate and that is one of my favorite mystery book conventions, so it's no surprise I also loved this book.

We found out at the end of the last book that Tom has been blackmailed by Queen Caroline to take this trip to Yorkshire. He is to retrieve a ledger from a man named John Aislabie. John Aislabie is actually a real man from the history books and depicted here quite interestingly. I had never heard of the South Sea Scheme, but think Enron and Ponzi scheme. A lot of people bought into the company, got rich quick, insider trading was involved, and many, many people lost their newfound wealth as an end result. And people were ruined because of it. This book never quite addresses what the company traded in and was all about, but a quick search will of course point out that it was slavery. The South Sea Company was in the business of slaves. And John Aislabie was the man in charge of the books/ledgers involved in the stocks of it all.

In this story, the royal family was involved with the insider trading bit of it and if the ledger was revealed to the world, they'd be ruined so they wanted it back. And Aislabie has blackmailed the Queen with this in order to help him with something, else he'll reveal their involvement. His problem is that he has threats upon his life. When Tom arrives at Aislabie's house, it's pretty apparent that the man has many enemies so it's not making Tom's life any easier to locate who would want this man dead, because it would be easier to create a list of who DOESN'T want him dead.

This is the first book where the audiobook is a singular narrator across countries. The UK narrator for the first two books, Joseph Kloska, is also the narrator for the US edition of the audiobook and I do prefer his narration so much more. He just sounds more like the age Tom actually is (26). His female voices are...okay. Like, they're acceptable. However, Tom is the primary narrator of the entire book so it's fine. This book is mostly in Tom's first-person POV except for a few chapters here and there in third-person past and third-person present POVs.

I will say though, the narrator's pronunciation of Byzantine was so weird to me that I still don't know if that's a UK pronunciation or strictly the narrator's pronunciation for it. The production of this audiobook is better than the last two though. There weren't any weird errors, and no sound effects. Unfortunately, this audiobook narrator does not read the end notes by the author about the historical research she did. It was read on the US narration for book 1 (although it was left off for book 2's audiobook even in the US production).

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is in part because it was slightly less stressful than the last two books and we could really focus on the mystery and the characters with less threat to Tom and Kitty's life than there was before. We're also in a new setting and not in London, which I found refreshing. Tom is really taken with the countryside. He grew up in the country and it seems as if he would actually fare better there without the vices of London to lure him in all the time. Although he does seem to grow restless if he stays still too long, so I'm not sure how long exactly he would last in the country or even how he would make money since his only way to making his own fortune thus far has been at the gambling tables. But I guess we'll see where this series takes him and Kitty (and possibly Sam). I can't believe I'm about to go into the last book in this series. I've throughly enjoyed these books so far, and with this last one I will have caught up with the author's backlist of books.

Great story!

enjoyed this book enormously--good character development, great plot twists , superb narrator. first book by this author. looking forward to the next.