Jørn Lier Horst, The Traitor (translated by Anne Bruce, narrated by Steve John Shepherd, Penguin Audio 2024)
Dervla McTiernan, The Unquiet Grave (narrated by Aoife McMahon, HarperAudio 2025)
In the last couple of weeks the Emerging Artist and I have driven from Sydney to the Great Ocean Road and back. Part of the way back our rear vision mirror was filled with great clouds of smoke that made the sun look like a little pink button, and on just one night we arrived in a motel that was without power for a couple of hours because of the extreme heat. But in our journeying we managed to listen to two audiobooks.
The Traitor is part of the Wisting series – the thirteenth instalment or so. Wisting is a scandi detective whom I’ve seen a bit of on television. It’s not one of my favourite shows, but a novel promised a story to keep us alert when driving and awake when passengering. Sadly, in the event I found my thoughts wandering when I was driving and i fell asleep when I was passenger. It may have been Steve John Shepherd’s matter-of-fact narration or Anne Bruce’s translation, but the relentless attention to detail made it almost impossible for me with my clearly feeble power to concentrate to keep track. If anything, listening to this audiobook confirmed me in my long-ago decision not to read any more crime novels.
But then on the way home we listened to The Unquiet Grave, and my resolve weakened. It’s the fourth in Dervla McTiernan’s Cormac Reilly series, wonderfully complex with at least four cases on the go at once, plus complex relationships among the detectives.
The main murder plot runs through a series of suspects, and I’m not complaining that the final revelation is a bit of a frost. There are a number of subplots – in particular one that involves major cybercrime in which the main criminal gets his come-uppance in a most satisfactory manner
Aoife McMahon’s narration wonderful. She really does do the police in different voices.
I listened to these stories as I travelled through a number of lands, including Wiradjuri, Wadawurrung and Yuim. I wrote the blog post on the land of Gadigal and Wangal of the Eora Nation. I acknowledge Elders past and present of all those peoples, and welcome any First Nations readers.
Me fail? I fly! 