Threat: Rina Walker Book Two: 4 STARS

Threat: Rina Walker Book Two: 4 STARS

Thursday, 29 December 2016

Written by: Hugh Fraser

Narrated by: Annie Aldington

Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins 

Unabridged Audiobook/Kindle

Release Date:14/07/2016

Publisher: Audible Studios

Series: Rina Walker Book 2

Genre: Crime, Suspense, Mystery

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Publishers Summary

London, 1961. In the dying days of the Macmillan government, George Preston is in control of crime in West London, and Rina Walker is his favoured contract killer.

When Rina is hired by Soho vice king Tony Farina to investigate the disappearance of girls from his clubs, she discovers that they are being supplied to a member of the English aristocracy for the gratification of his macabre sexual tastes.

Rina's pursuit of the missing girls and her efforts to save the innocent from slaughter become increasingly perilous as she grapples with interwoven layers of corruption and betrayal and makes her way, via the louche nightclubs of Berlin, towards a final confrontation with depravity.

This Book Contains Adult Content and possibly a spoiler

Review

Having read “Harm” the first in this series, I couldn’t wait to get stuck in to this second book. 

It is 1961 Rina and her young sister Georgie are living together in their flat. Rina is a successful contract killer but when Tony Farina asks her to take on a more investigative role to help find these girls she reluctantly agrees. His girls are disappearing and he wants to know why. 

Nobody could have guessed at their appalling and macabre fate. 

Lizzie, Rina’s lover, is given a more prominent role in this book, she runs her own sex business from her home and seems to specialise in providing the more unusual sex acts for her clients. Some of these acts are described, but are not overly detailed. 

Lizzie and Rina meet up with some well to do chaps at a nightclub and end up joining them to spend the weekend at a rather stately home. Believe me, what follows is a highly complex series of very dangerous events that eventually lead Rina to the perpetrator of the most heinous of sex crimes.

I continue to be fascinated by the character of Rina who, on the one hand is a killer without conscience, yet on the other is a protector of the vulnerable. She uses self inflicted pain to relieve her feelings during moments of intense stress. 

I particularly appreciate how the author writes without bias, he presents Rina just as she is, he justifies nothing any judgement is up to the reader. The most despicable of acts are described in a detached manner, which, I must say, did make them a little easier to tolerate.

Nevertheless, I did not like the inclusion of necrophilia, I found it shocking and disturbing which of course affected my enjoyment - hence 4 stars and not 5.

 This is but a matter of personal opinion and, according to reviews, many readers are quite comfortable with the subject matter. However, before buying the next book I shall read the blurb more carefully!

Narrator

Another fabulous narration by Annie Aldington who gets everything so right. She is the perfect match for the writing style of the author as she knows exactly when to allow Rina emotion and when to leave it out. Masterful work from a narrator who knows her craft.

-This audiobook is my own copy

Click HERE for my review of Harm

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Harm: Rina Walker Book One: 5 Stars

Harm: Rina Walker Book One: 5 Stars

Saturday, 10 December 2016

Written by: Hugh Fraser

Narrated by: Annie Aldington

Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins 

Unabridged Audiobook

Release Date: 14/07/2016

Publisher: Audible Studios

Source: Own copy

Publishers Summary

Acapulco, 1974: Rina Walker is on assignment. Just another quick, clean kill. She wakes to discover her employer's severed head on her bedside table and a man with an AK-47 coming through the door of her hotel room. She needs all her skills to neutralise her attacker and escape. After a car chase, she is captured by a Mexican drug boss who exploits her radiant beauty and ruthless expertise to eliminate an inconvenient member of the government.

Notting Hill, 1956: Fifteen-year-old Rina is scavenging and stealing to support her siblings and her alcoholic mother. When a local gangster attacks her younger sister, Rina wreaks violent revenge and murders him. Innocence betrayed, Rina faces the brutality of the postwar London underworld - a world that teaches her the skills she needs to kill….

Review 

I loved this story!

It isn’t often that I get so deeply immersed in a story so quickly. Half-way through the first chapter I knew I’d find it hard to stop reading, or, in my case, listening ….

Rina, beautiful, strangely compelling Rina, discovered that the reason for her abduction was because the drugs lord needed her to kill an enemy. His logic for choosing Rina was because of her ability to attract men and, of course, her job skills. Her pay off would be generous but would she live to collect?

From then on there follows an amazing adventure made all the more hairy by Rina not knowing who she can trust …

The story moves between 1974, Rina’s adult years and 1956, when Rina was fifteen years old and caring for both her siblings and her incapacitated mother, they were living a desolate and demeaning hand to mouth existence. People did what they had to do in order to make life a little more tolerable, Rina, at fifteen years old, committed her first hit.

The story is utterly compelling from the very beginning to the very end, the characters are vibrant and diverse, and the writing style is clean, uncluttered and flows beautifully. 

The vivid descriptions of the living conditions endured by the poor are quite moving: the over crowding; the unsanitary conditions and the ever present fear of eviction.

It’s the use of the parlance of those times and the inclusion of little details which adds both authenticity and flavour to the story. Not many people have to “pull the chain” in the lavatory these days, and certainly nobody has to deal with the old telephone kiosks with their button A and button B. 

The story stayed with me long after I finished it, wondering how Rina came to be that person who kills for money, the bigger question though is how on earth did the author get me to be rooting for her!

Narrator

Narrated by Annie Aldington, a renowned British actress and voiceover artist. Her talent is obvious from the very start of this high quality recording. For me, one of the most important qualities of a good narrator is the ability to produce well differentiated and consistent characters, a talent that Annie has in abundance. I also admire her ability to portray emotion - or lack of - in her characters, there no overacting here. Excellent job which added to my enjoyment of this book.

Source: Own copy purchased from Audible Australia

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