Reconstruction

By: Mick Herron

Narrated by: Julia Franklin

Length: 12 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

When a young man breaks into South Oxford Nursery School with a gun and takes a group of hostages, teacher Louise Kennedy is fearful. But Jaime Segura isn’t there on a homicidal mission.

Bad Sam Chapman - head of the intelligence service’s internal security force, the Dogs - tries to find out what Jaime is after. But the only person Jaime will talk to is Ben Whistler, an MI6 colleague of Jaime’s lover, Miro - who has gone missing with a quarter of a billion pounds....

©2008 Mick Herron (P)2020 Isis Publishing Ltd

Good book Cringe worthy narrator

Why have the narrator introduce herself at the beginning of the novel? It just distracts from the novel and inserts her ostentatious personality. She over emotes at every opportunity. Hearing her act like a child is just creepy not to mention her swallowing saliva. Ick.

Good story

I have a new favorite British spy author.. Excellent characters. I recommend this book.

Excellent Story and narration

The story was well developed and engaging. I particularly appreciated Ms. Franklin’s introduction and Explanation about how she would narrate this book.

worst reader ever

I tried to get past it because I am a huge Herron fan and love the audio editions of the Slough House series, but this reader is incredibly overbearing. Way way too much emphasis on every. single. word. The scenery chewing overacting is such that I couldn't follow the plot—far too distracted by the overdone voicing. (Not good in so many ways, including: why does she use a thick, Boris-and-Natasha Russian accent to voice a hispanic character????) I got maybe halfway through, kept having to rewind whole chapters to try to hear the story rather than the hamfest vocal performance, and finally just couldn't take it any more, gave up and returned for refund credit.

I love Mick Heron but

This isn’t his best. Writing is clever but the story is too drawn out. A few less repeated phrases and themes might have helped.

I love the narration.

The narrator of this book, Julia Franklin, is one of the very best. The voices and intonations that she gives to the different characters make the book come to life. I highly recommend this book and the other Mick Herron’s (Zoe Boehm series) that she has narrated.

Story almost ruined by the narrator

I did not appreciate the intro from the narrator which only contributed to a sense everything was being staged. And staged it was!! The narrator overly emotes every phrase .. every sentence. I found her extremely hard to listen to. The plot moves very slowly .. I think I might have enjoyed the book more if reading it. Mick Herron’s command of language is truly amazing, and heretofore always a delicious treat. But for me this story was basically ruined by the narrator, who bothered me to such a degree I was unable to appreciate the presumed care that went into the writing. I considered returning it.

Clever, But Plodding

Mick Heron novels are usually more exciting. This once does get interesting, but it takes time. The narrator is excellent, except for a lot of mouth noises, which are painful. Overall not my favorite by the author. But as always, intricate story.

Narrator is intolerable but story is good

I had to mute it a lot to get through it. I'm not sure the narrator has ever heard a child speak. I won't get another book with her reading it.

The narration takes away from the story

It is really a bit painful
So much so that it is difficult to focus on the story