A great story

This is yet another Quinton Jardine story. It is a stand alone and a great way to drip you toe into his great Scottish Skinner series of books. I laughed, cried and enjoyed every moment.

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Brilliant book

Excellent storyline, beautifully performed and very compelling listening. Lots of surprises throughout . I would recommend this to anyone.

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1 person found this helpful

The characters

Tied up a lot of loose threads from other books by Mr Jardine. Good story. The only criticism would be the mispronunciation of some Scottish names - but I can forgive that!

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the story line

excellent story and so many twists and turns
Unexpected events and unexpected solutions and surprises

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Apart from some of the accents.....

Really enjoyed this book, the plot i thought was very good, and Grandma Paloma was an inspired character, some of the accents were a bit strange but overall very good.

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2 people found this helpful

A good listen but not the same as Bob Skinner

Once I understood that this was not a straight crime story, ( I spent a long time waiting for the story to begin) I settled down to just enjoy the tale. It was interesting, followed a number of twists and turns and although not in the Bob Skinner series, I enjoyed it.

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4 people found this helpful

Managed it on my second attempt

Would you consider the audio edition of The Loner to be better than the print version?

The reader was great for most of the Scottish words but some small issues with town names or places at times.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Liked the twist at the end. Did'nt see all of it coming. The reason it took two attempts was that the first time, I could not be bothered with the super guy who was great at every thing and rich.

Which scene did you most enjoy?

Near the end in the Australian outback.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Some surprise with the twist.

Any additional comments?

Took me a long time to get into it, as above. it must be about 3-4 years between the first and second attempt. Having a bad memory meant at the beginning the whole thing seemed familiar. Glad I got to the end.

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story let down by narrator

The loner is a great change from the usual Skinner novels and is better than Jardine's more recent productions. That is until the end. It had me gripped the whole way despite the fact it's just the story if Xavi's life, but the ending is just absurd. it's all a bit similar to Skinner's life and it's just implausible that those events would actually happen.

The Narrator has a frustrating habit of mispronouncing just about every place name in Edinburgh which ruins the flow of the novel.

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1 person found this helpful

New central character, same QJ magic

The Loner is an excellent listen. Good pace throughout the narrative, plenty of action, QJ's Edinburgh background and some superb twists from early in the book all go to make this highly recommended.

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2 people found this helpful

Has the paint dried yet?

I bought this book based on the high rating and the two reviews. However, after listening to it for about three hours I am giving up. At the point where I abandoned this book, the protagonist, was a rich 17 yr old, bilingual, precocious teenager over 2m tall. He had an exceptional intellect (stays at the top of the class without any effort and passes exams easily) . And he had great physical talents (plays rugby above his age group and is snapped up by a professional football club having never played the game). His wealth came from his self-made, ruthless, and foul-mouthed capitalist father, who also plays an important role in the narrative. From what I have read, I also know a lot about his irascible and inscrutable Spanish Grandmother. And I know about his school friends and acquaintances. But the plot alludes me and for a thriller it is just too slow. Having said this, the characters are quite well drawn, and could be believable if you wanted to believe in them. The Scottish context is good. And the reading is good. Perhaps if I had stuck with it until something thrilling, mysterious or exciting happened then it might have turned into a great novel, but my attention span is just too short. And I think that giving it three hours to get going is more than enough.

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7 people found this helpful