The Lady Vanishes

By: Ethel Lina White

Narrated by: Kim Hartman

Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

Iris Carr is tired and exhausted. Travelling by train from Switzerland to England she is surrounded by alien languages and situations which she finds difficult to comprehend. She is relieved therefore when talkative old English governess Miss Froy becomes her impromptu travelling companion. But when Iris wakes from a short sleep Miss Froy has vanished - and none of the passengers will acknowledge her existence. Is Iris mad? Or is there some more sinister reason for the woman's vanishing?

Ethel Lina White was born in Abergavenny Wales in 1876. She wrote from an early age, progressing from essays and poems on to short stories. She eventually left her government job in the Ministry of Pensions to pursue a full time career in writing. White became one of the best known crime writers of the 1930s and '40s, thanks to a string of successful titles, the most famous of which were Some Must Watch (filmed as The Spiral Staircase) and The Wheel Spins (filmed as The Lady Vanishes, including a 1938 production by Alfred Hitchcock.)

©2016 Fantom Publishing (P)2016 Spokenworld Audio & Ladbroke Audio Ltd/Fantom Publishing

Ehhhh

If you are a fan Hitchcock’s take, there are variations some for better some worse

Lovely Cosy Mystery with a Superb Narrator

IF reincarnation turns out to be a “thing,”I believe it to be only fair to warn Kim Hartman that I’ve placed dibs on her PERFECT voice, timbre, and verbal expression for my next time around. 🥰👏😂😇🙏

Ripping, Indeed

The only other Ethel Lina White story I know is “White Cap”, from the second “Bodies from the Library” collection. Going by that rather shaky effort, I never would have chosen another. But the fact that Hitchcock filmed this story tipped the scale. It's a classic Hitchcockian tale of an ordinary person swept up in extraordinary circumstances, circumstances made even more extraordinary by the plain fact that no one, not even the listener, can be completely sure if the lady she met on the train ever really existed.

And as if that weren’t enough to be getting on with, there’s Kim Hartman—whom you may know as Helga from the long-running BBC comedy, “‘Allo, ‘Allo”—and her stellar performance behind the mic.

Old Fashioned Good Mystery

Perfect for those that appreciate a good mystery. Reminiscent of Agatha Christie with trains and complex characters.
Just a note about another review: You will definitely know in the end if there is or is not a Ms. Froy :)

Ripping good mystery

Old-fashioned complex series of double-takes and flashbacks makes the reader shakily aware, as the train plunges on, of just how much trouble our plucky protagonist has gotten herself into by discovering her inner lonely core of stubborn integrity at a most inconvenient time. Superb narration, though I occasionally thought the heroine's voice became too aged for the character the author described; but that is a minor quibble about a great read that makes an even better "listen"!

Was it all a dream?

What was most disappointing about Ethel Lina White’s story?

I've listened twice and I still don't get it. This one was definitely not for me. I listened the second time partly because the story ended so abruptly and without resolution. Whatever I missed, I missed both times. The narrator is fine but I didn't care for her interpretation of the main character. I thought perhaps it signified something, another reason I listened a second time. Didn't make a difference though. I just didn't get it.