The Boy They Tried to Hide cover art

The Boy They Tried to Hide

The true story of a son, forgotten by society

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The Boy They Tried to Hide

By: Shane Dunphy
Narrated by: Shane Dunphy
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£5.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends on 5 July 2026 at 11:59 BST. Cancel monthly.

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The Boy They Tried to Hide is the startling, true account of how truth is sometimes stranger than fiction ...

Shane Dunphy was working as a resource teacher in a rural town when he was approached by the mother of one of his pupils, seeking help. She is worried for her troubled young son, who has been found leaving the house late at night to go deep into the woods near their home. He has spoken of meetings with a friend, Thomas, but no one else has seen him or knows who he is.

As Shane tries to discover what's going on, a sexual predator he helped bring to justice years before reappears. The man is looking to settle a score, and has picked someone close to Shane as his next victim.

In The Boy They Tried to Hide, Shane Dunphy revisits cases he encountered during his time as a child protection worker and journalist and, in doing so, once again discovers that leaving the past behind is harder than it seems.©2016 Shane Dunphy (P)2016 Hodder Headline Limited True Crime
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This is the third audiobook I have purchased by Shane Dunphy. All three are beautifully written and narrated, but this audiobook needs some serious work on the production. All through it there are clicks and pops, no silences between chapters which makes Shane sound like he's rushing through it, and at the end it seems the production was abandoned altogether. We can hear Shane pause to turn pages and even repeat phrases.

Shane writes beautifully and narrates with such conviction that you are transported back to environments he was in. For this reason I highly recommend The Boy They Tried To Hide.

Shame about the recording.

Fantastic narrative, production needs work

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True stories are always the best. Very well narrated. Looking forward to reading more of his books

Really enjoyed this book .

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The reading was dreadful. No pauses where there should have been, and very long pauses in other sections , sentences repeated, and the sound of the page turning at one point. Spoilt a good tale.

Poorly presented

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I finished it in less the 24 hours. It's fine through so many topics. Highly recommend it.

Brillant and very engaging

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The recording on this is awful; the listener can loudly hear pages being turned, sometimes the sentences repeat, sometimes there is terrible fuzzy noise over the recording (and not the outside recordings, I mean the studio ones), occasionally there are gaps in the middle of a sentence.
Where was the sound editor?

Although I have written all of that about the sound I have to give this 5 stars. As always, Shane Dunphy is tenacious and brilliant. He has written his own story and tells it with dignity.

As with all of Shane Dunphy’s books, the story isn’t an easy listen, but it is a necessary one.

Brilliant.

Terrible recording, brilliant book

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