
Black Jade
A Daiyu Wu Mystery (Daiyu Wu Mysteries, Book 1)
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Narrated by:
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Tom Briggs
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By:
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Gloria Oliver
About this listen
A curious lack of corpses. A slew of snobbish suspects. Can this sightless amateur sleuth pinpoint a killer?
Dallas, TX, 1930. Daiyu Wu refuses to be disadvantaged by her blindness. Navigating the world with help from her faithful companions, the young Chinese adventuress celebrates life with a strong thirst for knowledge. So when she scents burned garlic in a customer’s garment, the clever laundress runs an experiment that reveals a dress doused in arsenic.
Determined to provide the unaware authorities with a clue in a murder case, Daiyu vows to chase down the garment’s mysterious origins even though there’s no body to be found. But as the links lead the immigrant girl higher into Texas’s social echelons, she clashes with bigotry, short-sightedness, and a web of lies hamstringing her ability to investigate.
Can she find fresh evidence before she’s hung out to dry?
Black Jade is the playful first book in the Daiyu Wu Mysteries cozy historical series. If you like witty heroines, clever twists, and feisty canines, then you’ll love Gloria Oliver’s period puzzle.
Buy Black Jade to pit instinct against old money today!
©2021 Gloria Oliver (P)2022 Gloria OliverListeners also enjoyed...
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Unique narrator
- By norman on 02-10-18
By: John Holt
Listener received this title free
I like Jacques. He's fiercely loyal and protective, plus his take on events is hilarious at times. The story is well paced and has a twist I didn't see coming st the end. The setting is 1930s Texas, which is not typical, but the prevailing attitudes and difficulties Daiyu faces for being blind, Chinese, and female are depicted well.
Tom Briggs narrates the story. Overall, he does well, but there are a few glitches — sometimes it sounds a bit echo-y, there are repeated phrases, and at one point I heard a mouse clicking. These things distracted me in the moment.
Interesting start to a cozy series
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Listener received this title free
Its okay
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Listener received this title free
The author does an excellent job of detailing the inherent prejudices against persons of Oriental descent in the United States during the 1930s as well as providing information related to application of arsenic poisoning. However, I found that in places this book dragged on with repetitive information related to various character situations during the course of the story; however, the overall character development was exceptional as the reader is able to know their inner feelings and circumstances.
The narrator was good as far as creation of different voices for the characters but at times appeared to stumble and pause longer than necessary for chapter changes. I look forward to seeing how this series develops and the relationships grow in the future.
I received a copy of this audiobook from the Author and StoryOrigin in exchange for a fair and honest review.
1930s Mystery with a Hint of Prejudices
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Daiyu Wu who is so much more than simply the only one of her parents' children to be born alive and survive. But she has been blind from birth, and Jacques is more than a childhood companion become chauffer and defender (as is her faithful dog, Prince) and his is the perspective of the novel.
Daiya has a very observant mind undistracted by visual input, has deductive reasoning down to a science, and an impeccable memory. The plot basics are well done in the publisher's blurb, so there is no need to repeat or do the spoiler thing. I loved this story!
Narrator Tom Briggs seems an odd choice with his slight hoarseness being magnified by the sound effect as if speaking in a large empty room as well as my personal need to play at 1.25 speed. Delineation of characters and emotions was good.
Great new series!
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Dai, as she's called by those closest to her, lives with her more than slightly overbearing parents, her brother Jacques, and her faithful canine companion Prince Razor.
While working at the family's laundry service, Dai smells the unmistakable scent of arsenic on a dress brought in by a customer earlier the previous day. She learns that it belongs to a young woman who was found dead a few days before. Convinced that the dress is connected to the murder, with help from an extremely reluctant Jacques, Dai endeavors to track down the culprit and bring them to justice.
Not only did I enjoy the story immensely, but I learned so much about Chinese history and culture and American history and culture in the 1930s - lots of new vocabulary and customs. I'm so glad Gloria Oliver plans to continue the series!
I also really love the fact that there's finally a sleuth with a disability. I don't enjoy the fact that Dai is blind, but it's nice to see the disabled population being represented and portrayed as doing something that able-bodied professional detectives normally do, doing it well, and getting credit for it. I, too, have a physical disability, although in my case, I use a motorized wheelchair for mobility. I feel that Dai is a woman after my own heart - She's kind, compassionate, driven, hard-working, intelligent, and determined. She may be blind, but like me, she tries not to let her disability define her.
So glad the series will continue!
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Listener received this title free
The story is well-paced and uses the time period well. I think you’d be hard-pressed to write a story about arsenic poisoning on a green dress set in the modern era. I appreciate this as it would have been senseless otherwise.
I like the characters in this story. They’re believable, annoying funny, relatable. I could see myself listening to or reading other books in the series just to get to know them more.
It took me a while to get used to the narrator. It sounds like he’s got a mouth full of cotton. It took me longer to be able to speed up the book than normal because I wasn’t able to understand what he was saying. Overall, he did a great job and I found his voice relaxing to listen to. At the end of one chapter, some dialogue is repeated 4 – 5 times. Another time at the start of a chapter, there are audible clicks which are also distracting.
Minor issues with the audiobook version aside; I enjoyed this story very much and recommend it to anybody who likes mysteries or Sherlock Holmes stories.
NOTE: This copy was provided to me free of charge as a digital review copy. The opinions stated in this review are mine and mine alone, I was not paid or requested to give this book a certain rating, suggestion, or approval.
Baskerville Book Reviews
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Listener received this title free
Tom Briggs is the narrator, and while he has great voices for the many characters, his narration sounded a little muffled. I enjoyed his pacing and thought his choices of voice for each character was spot on.
Great start to the series!
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Listener received this title free
I recommend this entertaining book, just not the audible version.
I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book from Story Origin.
Blind and so perceptive.
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Listener received this title free
The mystery was a fun one because it starts with Miss Wu detecting arsenic in a dress sent for washing at her family's laundromat. I loved the cast of characters involved. There's the female doctor introduced, members of the peerage in Britain, and wealthy Texans included. The story is told from the chauffeur's perspective due to the main character being blind since birth. I liked they way the author handled racism and general prejudice in the story. I thought it was done well.
It's a good story I would have liked more if I read rather than listened to, mostly due to the narration, but otherwise the story was good. I liked how the mystery played out, with the twists and turns and general whodunit vibe.
I thought the narrator did an ok job. I listened to it at 1.4x speed, since I thought he spoke a bit too slow for my liking. He does a good job with the general narration of describing all the events, though I cannot say he does a good job with the character voices. It stays kind of the same throughout without too much inflection. Once I understood his style, that made the character voice differentiation easier and made listening to the story easier.
1930s Texas Mystery
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Listener received this title free
Intriguing Historical Cozy Mystery
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