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The Tarnished Chalice

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About this listen

 On a bitter winter evening in 1356, Matthew Bartholomew and Brother Michael arrive in Lincoln - Michael to accept an honour from the cathedral, and Bartholomew to look for the woman he wants to marry. It is not long before they learn that the friary in which they are staying is not the safe haven they imagine - one guest has already been murdered.

It soon emerges that the dead man was holding the Hugh Chalice, a Lincoln relic with a curiously bloody history. Bartholomew and Michael are soon drawn into a web of murder, lies and suspicion in a city where neither knows who can be trusted...

©2006 Susanna Gregory (P)2007 W F Howes Ltd Crime Fiction Historical Mystery Abraham Lincoln Fiction Crime Middle Ages
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to be honest I would not have listened to this all the way through, except for the fact that I didn't want to miss anything in the ongoing story outside this case. I complained in the past about the previous narrator being too slow, but, I apologize because I want him back. I did not like this narrator and I think it was because of him I have not enjoyed this and the previous book.

bit slow

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Despite pronouncing Cynric’s name properly in the previous audiobook Wincott now seems to have forgotten how to say it.
His attempt at a Welsh accent is appalling too...
And if he says “grih-MACE” instead of “grih-MISS” one more time I am going to scream.
I can’t wait for David Thorpe to come back in the next instalment.
A great book spoiled by a mediocre narrator.

I cannot

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Is there anything you would change about this book?

The body count, the ridiculous conclusion, and the wooden performance.

Has The Tarnished Chalice put you off other books in this genre?

Only ones written by the same author.

What didn’t you like about Andrew Wincott’s performance?

Wooden in the extreme! Sententious, slow, over-emphasised in way too many places.

Did The Tarnished Chalice inspire you to do anything?

Only to never listen to anything by the same author or the same reader again!

Any additional comments?

This was the first book I have listened to from Audible that was thoroughly disappointing in almost every aspect. The situation was the only redeeming feature, along with the characters of Matt and to a certain extent Michael. I have wasted a lot of hours hoping that the wooden performance would prove worth struggling through, and gave up on it half an hour before the end when the most ridiculously unlikely person proved to be behind the inordinately unlikely body count.

Very disappointing

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Bit slow
Over all okay
Not much of a plot in the end
Hopefully the next one will be better

Bit slow

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I really like Susanna Gregory's stories: nicely complicated plots, interesting and well-drawn characters, thoroughly convincing historic context. However although I've always preferred the Audible performances read by Gordon Griffin. I've listened to Andrew Wincott reading 'Mark of a Murderer' and it was fine. However, I was really disappointed in his reading of this book; sometimes his interpretation completely changed the sense of the words, characters spoke with heavy overtones of meaning that the text simply did not imply, undue emphasis was given to trivial comments but not enough to significant moments in the plot - it really spoilt it for me. I found myself wondering what he author had really meant, and trying to reinterpret it.

On top of this, it was read painfully slowly at times - bored to the point of dropping off to sleep at times and having to re-listen just to pick up the plot. I was releved to find wasn't the only reader who thought this. Sorry!

Superficial performance spoiled good yarn

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