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The Club Dumas

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The Club Dumas

By: Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Narrated by: David Warner
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About this listen

 Lucas Corso, middle-aged, tired, and cynical, is a book detective, a mercenary hired to hunt down rare editions for wealthy and unscrupulous clients. When a well-known bibliophile is found hanged, leaving behind part of the of the original manuscript of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, Corso is brought in to authenticate the fragment.

Soon the unsuspecting Corso is drawn into a swirling plot involving devil worship, occult practices, and swashbuckling derring-do among a cast of characters bearing a suspicious resemblance to those of Dumas' masterpiece.

©2006 Arturo Perez-Reverte (P)2009 Phoenix Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Mystery Suspense Thriller & Suspense

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Critic reviews

"Suspense-filled and ingenious, Perez-Reverte's latest...is also something of a primer on the rare-book business and a witty meditation on the relationship between book lovers and the texts they adore. ( Publishers Weekly)
" The Club Dumas is a thinking person's thriller: in addition to a riveting plot, the book is full of intriguing details that range from the working habits of Alexandre Dumas to how one might go about forging a 17th-century text. Woven through these meditations is enough murder, sex, and the occult to keep both the hero, Lucas Corso, and the reader hopping." (Amazon.com review)
All stars
Most relevant  
Having enjoyed reading this book many years ago, I thought I would give the audio version a try, although I usually avoid abridged books.

As noted by other reviewers, the recording has not been properly assembled. The text has evidently been recorded in short segments (which do not correspond to the Audible chapters), and then put together in the wrong order. This makes a story which is already quite complex very difficult to follow. The two most glaring examples are:-

1. In the middle of Corso’s meeting with the Ceniza brothers, we are abruptly returned to his earlier scene with Borja

2. Nearer the end of the book, Corso discusses his fight with another character before it has actually happened.

Regarding the narrator’s pronunciation of French and Spanish names, this is certainly poor, but for me that doesn’t really detract from the story.

The other element which would inevitably be lost in any recording of this book is the illustrations, which are critical to the story. They can be described, but it is much better to see them.

In short, if you want to get the most out of the story, you should probably read the book first. But if you would just like to hear David Warner’s mellifluous voice reading well-written prose, give this version a try.

I will be happy to revise this to a 5-star review if Audible can get the sections into the correct order. For a small consideration (a few free tokens?) I would be happy to sit down with the book and the recording and provide them with the exact position of the passages that are out of order, and the places where they should go ;)

Badly edited

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I read this some years ago and enjoyed it. I didn't like it as well as an audiobook this time round. The story seemed too strained and I didn't get the delight in playing with fictional characters. Could partly be the way it was abridged, partly the way it was read (ok on the whole I suppose but not inspiring and for goodness sake couldn't the narrator have got advice on how to pronounce Spanish and French names? His versions were often unrecognisable!). Or maybe my tastes have changed. I did listen to the end and it livened up my commute, but I doubt I'll listen again.

Mixed feelings

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The quality of the narration brings the narrative alive. There is a richness and depth that Warner brings that leaves one wanting more.

Wonderful story and fantastic narration

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Wonderful narrator, slight and rather difficult-to-follow plot but that might be due to the editing, abridging, etc; short musical interludes that sometimes drown out the narrator.

Abridged, loud music drowns dialogue

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A great book ruined by cutting the story to pieces. Scenes mixed up an sometimes leaft out. Not enjoyable.

Cut to pieces

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Really need to fix this audio book, tried but can't follow it cause it jumps, sad really as I look forward to hearing it.
Would review again if fixed.

Jumps.....

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(NO SPOILERS)
First off this is more a review of the actual Audiobook than the book itself.

I have been on Audible for about 8 months now (took a break for two months) and I can honestly say this is the worst audiobook I've heard on here. I used to wonder "Why would anybody refund an audiobook?" but after listening to this i can honestly understand why.

I am a HUGE fan of the plot hole filled movie and have always wanted to give the book a try. Since discovering Audible I've had this in my sights for sometime.
The Audiobook is obviously abridged and because of that you expect HUGE chunks to be cut out or trimmed down. What you do not expect are huge story details of VERY important information to be cut out. For example - In one part of the Audiobook you're listening to the narrator explain a scene where Corso (The main character) is entering his hotel when he meets somebody. As the tension is building the scene randomly changes to him sitting in his hotel room watching a person (not the same person as he met outside) leave it... You have NO idea who this person was, why this person was there or how they got in or what they said while they were in there. However, it's all there in the book and is needed to understand whats going on. If they had left out that a person was in his hotel room that would have been one thing. But to open a scene with "He/she(no spoilers) walked towards the door and said 'You'll be seeing me again' " followed by the thoughts of the main character on the conversation that we, as the read, were not a party to is totally confusing.
It feels like a very poor edit and leaves you confused. This happens multiple times through the book and makes it VERY hard to follow the story without watching the Movie OR reading the book previously.

Broken:
There are parts of the book that randomly jump ahead mid conversation. There is a scene where Corso is talking on the phone and mid word the audiobook jumps to a scene where he's talking to a person in a bar. At first I thought it was just a corrupted download but the same thing happens on my Echo dot (streaming). This has happened three times and i'm only half way through the story.

After reading the reviews it seems I am not the only person to find these 'bugs' and poor edits. I am in contact with audible via Twitter however, i don't seem to be getting anywhere. If that changes and/or they fix it i'll change my review.

If you're after a review of the story then to put it quite simply - It's AMAZING...At least the book is amazing (I've since read it after listening to this audiobook) However, don't waste your time with this audiobook.

Please don't bother -Its Broken & poorly edited.

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