Murder mystery set in 19th century Edinburgh

I thoroughly enjoyed this murder mystery set in 19th century Edinburgh. I listened to it with an A to Z of Edinburgh on my lap so that I could check out all the place names and follow the various journeys described around the city. How good was the book? Well, when I had finished it I immediately purchased the follow-up novel by the same author, which is called 'The Unquiet Heart' and I am just about to start listening to that.

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An absolute fantastic historical mystery!

I honestly have no real words to describe how good this was. I started this book at around 12pm and finished at 10:30pm the very same day. It was THAT good.

I love anything that's set in the 19th century because it always provides a good backdrop for any sort of plot, and this is no different. Kaite Welsh has created a fabulous set of characters with a very detailed environment. I'm looking forward to delving into the sequel!!

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Wonderful

I can't wait to hear more about this amazing detective. So well written and such an engaging story.

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Nearly good!

This was frustratingly close to being great! I loved the premise of an inquisitive, rebellious young female medical student in nineteenth-century Edinburgh, but it was let down by the narration. It is read at breakneck speed - I actually listened to most of it slowed down to 0.75x just to make it intelligible. Then there are the deeply annoying mispronunciations of several key Edinburgh terms - one of the main characters’ names is Merchiston, and the narrator pronounces the ‘ch’ as in ‘church’, whereas it should be closer to a ‘k’ sound. This might sound like a petty quibble, but Merchiston is a very commonly heard word, as it is the name of a whole area of Edinburgh as well as a school, and hearing it mispronounced over and over again was so irritating! Other offenders were ‘Teviot’ (should be Teeviot not Tehviot) and ‘Cockburn Street’ (the ‘ck’ is silent) - though these mercifully did not crop up so frequently. A shame, as the story itself had a lot of promise!

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3 people found this helpful

Enjoyable read.

Enjoyable read. Gothic Edinburgh setting works really well, especially in the backdrop of women’s rights and women in medicine. This gives the book more depth than the general crime genre,but it not the focus / too heavy. I’m a man, but my daughter is about to start her first year of medicine at Glasgow uni so it added to my interest.
Excellent narration. I saw a negative comment re. narration in another review and I disagree. There are one or two mispronunciations but they don’t distract from the audio book overall. I live in Edinburgh so I think I’m qualified to make the observation :-). I felt the narrator added an extra sense of the character and did a great job.

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4 people found this helpful

Enjoyable Victorian Mystery

Good book, although the narrator pronouncing wean as "ween" was jarring 😂. Scottish accents on Audible will never cease to be painful.

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Easy listening

I cantered through this. The story is paper thin and relies on that old trope of smart characters being intensely dim but it’s well written with some rye observations and a climax I hadn’t altogether anticipated.

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Easy listening.

Nice background listen whilst sewing. Predictable murder mystery but with a enjoyable background of Victorian Edinburgh,

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