• Black Ship

  • A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery
  • By: Carola Dunn
  • Narrated by: Lucy Rayner
  • Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (1,072 ratings)

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Black Ship  By  cover art

Black Ship

By: Carola Dunn
Narrated by: Lucy Rayner
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Publisher's summary

In September 1925, Scotland Yard DCI Alec Fletcher inherits a large house on the outskirts of London from a recently deceased great-uncle. Fortunately so, as he and his wife, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, are the recent proud parents of twins, and their house is practically bursting at the seams. Though in need of a bit of work, this new, larger house seems a godsend - set in a small circle of houses, with a communal garden and Hampstead Heath nearby, the setting is idyllic.

Idyllic, that is until a dead body shows up half-hidden under the bushes of the communal garden. Now rumors of bootleggers, American gangsters, and an international liquor smuggling operation via black ships have turned everything in their new neighborhood upside down. Alec is assigned by Scotland Yard to ferret out the truth behind the dastardly dead - but it's up to Daisy to find out who the dead man is, what his relationship to her new neighbors is, why he was murdered, and who did him in!

©2017 Carola Dunn (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

What listeners say about Black Ship

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Terrible narration!

I've loved the two narrators of all the other Carola Dunn books I have in my library. This narrator is so bad that I can't follow the story even after four tries. I am returning this book.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Don't care for the narrator

Lucy Raynor gets on my nerves. Her Daisy is very arch, and her Alec always sound grumpy and unpleasant. There is no need for narrators to try to emulate the tone of the opposite sex--it always sounds fake and often portrays the characters in ways that do not mesh with the interpretation I get in reading the print versions. I'd much rather have less dramatics and more straightforward reading.

That said, I do like these books and will put up with the annoying reader.

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8 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
  • CB
  • 12-20-17

Narrator

Struggled to finish this book. Daisy has lost her charm. Narration artificial. I will miss Daisy

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Terrible narration!

I am surprised how much I dislike this narrator. The inflection of the way she speaks is so hard to follow. I just don't even know what is going on because she is narrating with this over-acting. I will avoid this narrator in the future unfortunately. Too bad, the story is sort of interesting but not enough to continue.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A terrific Daisy book dealing with bootleggers

Daisy gets to move to a new, larger home when her husband, Chief Detective Inspector Alec Fletcher gets left a home in a higher class community by his uncle, leading to her latest adventure in Black Ship by Carola Dunn. While preparing for the move, they get visited by former FBI detective Lambert, whom we met in Daisy's adventures in America in The Case of the Murdered Muckraker. We saw him throw in his badge in terror while trying to guard Daisy in that book. Now he has joined the Treasury Department and is out to catch bootleggers during America's Prohibition Era. He has been sent to England to track down British companies who have been smuggling alcohol into the U.S., but, true to Lambert's style, he has managed to get himself mugged and has lost all his money and documents. Helping Daisy get her new home in order while waiting for those documents, he is excited to learn that her new neighbors are in the wine business. Without any evidence that they are involved in smuggling alcohol into America, he keeps skulking around their area, not very successfully keeping the Jessups under surveillance. Meanwhile, Daisy finds her new neighbors delightful and is thrilled to find one the mother of young children a little older than Daisy's twins.

Then one morning, shortly after the Fletchers have gotten properly settled into their new home, the new parlor maid takes their dog, Nana, out for a walk, and Nana finds a dead body in the bushes. Of course, this being a Daisy Dalrymple book, we have come to expect such an occurrence. But this time Alec doesn't have to do more than go out into his front yard to investigate. And using their home as the base of the investigation gives Daisy an opportunity to keep up to date on happenings as possible. The dead man seems to have some connection to the Jessups, but what? And what has become of Lambert?

This book really is a delight, one of my favorite Daisy books so far. I enjoyed learning about black ships, which would stop off the U.S. coast line to sell their alcoholic offerings to those trying to sell liquor illegally in this country. I liked seeing the development of this interesting story. Even though it telegraphs the "who" fairly obviously, the fun is in learning the details of how and why. And I love just to follow the wild capers that Daisy always gets involved in and sends us on. I do have to comment, though, that I'm a little disappointed in the way that despite her musings in earlier books that she prefers the middle class lifestyle of being more hands-on as a mother, Daisy seems to be on the road more towards a higher class lifestyle, with a nanny who does most of the work. She just comes into the nursery when she feels like it to play with the children. The nanny made her feel guilty for taking her son out while she was visiting, saying that Daisy returned with him fussy because he is hungry. Clearly, Daisy has made no effort to breast-feed her babies, and we don't see her bottle feeding them either. In fact, we see a conversation that she has with her 12-year-old step-daughter, Belinda, that Belinda might have to learn how to change a baby's nappy (British for diaper) because times are changing for domestic laborers, and Belinda might not be able to have a full- time nanny.

Lucy Raynor returns as narrator of the book. I like her portrayal of Daisy and her adventures. Raynor puts a good feeling into her performance.

I really enjoyed listening to Black Ship. I have loved the whole series, but as with any author, some books are better than others. However, this is one of the better ones. I really look forward to the rest of the books in the series coming out on audio! I give Black Ship five stars!

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

pleasant

A very pleasant and entertaining book. the characters are evolving. looking to the next book

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Lucy Rayner is the best!

Love Lucy Rayner as the Narrator! She makes the Daisy and Alex Fletcher characters come alive!

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

One of the more original Daisy Dalrymple plots

And unique for the series, in that the reader knows whodunnit for most of the investigation. But it’s interesting to watch Daisy and Alec, et al., figure it out.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

MY EARS!!!!

The narrator is making what could be a nice book absolutely unbearable. It’s hard to describe how she takes a posh accent and a few “Darling”s (Daahling), and turns a beautiful language into torture. She emphasizes the accent instead of the storyline - seemingly loving the way she sounds. It is a complete turn off. The character is well spoken, but the interpretation is that she’s looking down her nose at everyone around her with every word she speaks. This is not what I think the author intended for this character.. She is supposed to be an endearing character, but I can’t stand her.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

good fun that brings a smile.

the preformace is first rate and brings the story to life. there is a murder of course, but that takes a back seat to the who do him in fun.

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