Ordinary Thunderstorms
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Gideon Emery
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By:
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William Boyd
About this listen
One May evening in London, Adam Kindred, a young climatologist in town for a job interview, is feeling good about the future as he sits down for a meal at a little Italian bistro. He strikes up a conversation with a solitary diner at the next table, who leaves soon afterward. With horrifying speed, this chance encounter leads to a series of malign accidents, through which Adam loses everything—home, family, friends, job, reputation, passport, credit cards, cell phone—never to get them back.
The police are searching for him. There is a reward for his capture. A hired killer is stalking him. He is alone and anonymous in a huge, pitiless modern city. Adam has nowhere to go but down—underground. He decides to join that vast army of the disappeared and the missing who throng London’s lowest levels as he tries to figure out what to do with his life and struggles to understand the forces that have made it unravel so spectacularly. Adam’s quest will take him all along the river Thames, from affluent Chelsea to the gritty East End, and on the way he will encounter all manner of London’s denizens—aristocrats, prostitutes, evangelists, and policewomen—and version after new version of himself.
Ordinary Thunderstorms, William Boyd’s electric follow-up to his award-winning Restless, is a profound and gripping novel about the fragility of social identity, the corruption at the heart of big business, and the secrets that lie hidden in the filthy underbelly of every city.
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- Unabridged
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Following a scalding row with her mother, 15-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: A sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as "the radio people," Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life.
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Not Short Listed, This Time
- By Mel on 09-23-14
By: David Mitchell
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Hero: A Simon Serrailler Short Story
- By: Susan Hill
- Narrated by: Steven Pacey
- Length: 51 mins
- Unabridged
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When Simon Serrailler was a rookie constable with the Met, he did something reckless in the course of a night's work which caused a man's death. But his act was praised by his colleagues, and he was called a hero. Years later, now a detective chief superintendent who has been badly injured in the course of duty, he receives a medal for bravery at Buckingham Palace while recollecting that fateful night of his early career, when chance disguised itself as bravery.
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This 'story' makes no sense to me
- By Pamela Donaldson on 05-10-17
By: Susan Hill
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Single & Single
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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A lawyer from the London finance house of Single & Single is shot dead on a Turkish hillside by people with whom he thought he was in business. A children's magician is asked by his bank to explain the unsolicited arrival of more than five million pounds sterling in his young daughter's modest trust. A freighter bound for Liverpool is boarded by Russian coast guards in the Black Sea. The celebrated London merchant venturer "Tiger" Single disappears into thin air.
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The spy who came back to the bank
- By Darwin8u on 03-12-14
By: John le Carré
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Divorcing Jack
- A Novel
- By: Colin Bateman
- Narrated by: Glen Murrant
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Dan Starkey is a journalist in Belfast, who shares with his wife, Patricia, an appetite for drinking and dancing. Dan meets Margaret, and things begin to get out of hand - terrifyingly, she is murdered. Before long, Dan is a target himself, racing as fast as he can against time to crack the mystery.
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This Belfast Gal was unimpressed
- By Barbarama on 09-30-23
By: Colin Bateman
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Blue Monday
- Frieda Klein, Book 1
- By: Nicci French
- Narrated by: Beth Chalmers
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Frieda Klein is a solitary, incisive psychotherapist who spends her sleepless nights walking along the ancient rivers that have been forced underground in modern London. She believes that the world is a messy, uncontrollable place. The abduction of five-year-old Matthew Farraday provokes a national outcry and a desperate police hunt. And when his face is splashed over the newspapers, Frieda cannot ignore the coincidence: one of her patients has been having dreams in which he has a hunger for just such a child.
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Engrossing thriller - an easy "read"
- By Hilary on 08-15-13
By: Nicci French
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Are You Watching Me?
- DS Claire Boyle, Book 2
- By: Sinead Crowley
- Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Dear Elizabeth, I've been watching you. I hope to see you...soon. Liz Cafferky is on the up. Rescued from her dark past by the owner of a drop-in centre for older men, Liz soon finds herself as the charity's face - and the unwilling darling of the Dublin media. Amidst her claustrophobic fame, Liz barely notices a letter from a new fan. But then one of the centre's clients is brutally murdered, and Elizabeth receives another, more sinister note. Running from her own ghosts, Liz is too scared to go to the police.
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Fantastic!!
- By Brett McAteer on 03-06-19
By: Sinead Crowley
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The Night Ferry
- By: Michael Robotham
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Police detective Ali Barba receives an urgent letter from her estranged friend Cate. Startled by the letter's alarming tone and eager to atone for egregious past actions, Ali meets Cate at their high-school class reunion. The obviously pregnant Cate begs Ali to stop those who are trying to take her baby. But the plot takes a bizarre twist when a careening car kills Cate - and Ali discovers the truth about Cate's pregnancy.
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An ok read
- By Elgee on 02-11-08
By: Michael Robotham
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The Wicked Girls
- By: Alex Marwood
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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On a fateful summer morning in 1986, two 11-year-old girls meet for the first time. By the end of the day, they will both be charged with murder. Twenty-five years later, journalist Kirsty Lindsay is reporting on a series of sickening attacks on young female tourists in a seaside vacation town when her investigation leads her to interview carnival cleaner Amber Gordon. For Kirsty and Amber, it's the first time they've seen each other since that dark day so many years ago.
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I didn't want to like these girls...
- By Lesley on 08-30-13
By: Alex Marwood
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Dead Before Dying
- By: Deon Meyer
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Three men who have nothing in common are found murdered in Cape Town, and the string of vicious killings pushes the city toward panic. Captain Mat Joubert is left scrambling for answers in a case that might be his last chance to prove that his life's slow spiral will not pull him under.
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South African mystery, very good.
- By Kathleen on 09-29-12
By: Deon Meyer
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Babylon Berlin
- Gereon Rath, Book 1
- By: Volker Kutscher
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Berlin, 1929. Detective Inspector Rath was a successful career officer in the Cologne Homicide Division before a shooting incident in which he inadvertently killed a man. He has been transferred to the vice squad in Berlin, a job he detests even though he finds a new friend in his boss, Chief Inspector Wolter. There is seething unrest in the city, and the Commissioner of Police has ordered the vice squad to ruthlessly enforce the ban on May Day demonstrations.
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It's no Bernie Gunther Mystery ...
- By Brian English on 01-28-18
By: Volker Kutscher
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very satisfying story-telling
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One of the best Boyd storylines, but...
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When he is hired as the personal piano tuner for a brilliant pianist, Brodie Moncur suddenly finds himself swept up into a life of luxury that he could never have imagined. But while accompanying his new employer on tours from Paris to St. Petersburg, Brodie falls madly in love with the Russian soprano, Lika Blum: beautiful, worldly, seductive - and forbidden. Though seemingly doomed from the start, Brodie’s passion for Lika only grows as their lives become increasingly more intertwined, more secretive, and, finally, more dangerous.
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Captures the protagonist's struggles
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A good book killed by the narrator
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"I am Eva Delectorskaya," Sally Gilmartin announces, and so on a warm summer afternoon in 1976 her daughter, Ruth, learns that everything she ever knew about her mother was a carefully constructed lie. Sally Gilmartin is a respectable English widow living in picturesque Cotswold village; Eva Delectorskaya was a rigorously trained World War II spy, a woman who carried fake passports and retreated to secret safe houses, a woman taught to lie and deceive, and above all, to never trust anyone. Three decades later the secrets of Sally's past still haunt her.
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very satisfying story-telling
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Gabriel Dax is a young man haunted by the memories of a fire that took his mother’s life. Every night, when sleep finally comes, he dreams about his childhood home in flames. His days are spent on the move as an acclaimed travel writer, capturing the changing landscapes of Europe in the grip of the Cold War. When he is offered the chance to interview Patrice Lumumba, newly elected president of the People’s Republic of the Congo, he finds himself drawn into a web of duplicities and betrayals.
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One of the best Boyd storylines, but...
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A spy is dead. A legend is born. This is how it all began. The explosive prequel to Casino Royale, from best-selling author Anthony Horowitz. Forever and a Day is the story of the birth of a legend, in the brutal underworld of the French Riviera, taking listeners into the very beginning of James Bond’s illustrious career and the formation of his identity.
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A producer. A novelist. An actress. It's summer 1968 - a time of war and assassinations, protests and riots. While the world is reeling, our trio is involved in making a disaster-plagued, Swingin' Sixties British movie in sunny Brighton. All are leading secret lives. As the movie shoot zigs and zags, these layers of secrets become increasingly more untenable. Pressures build inexorably. The FBI and CIA get involved.
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Great book for a book club read
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William Boyd: A BBC Radio Drama Collection
- A Good Man in Africa, An Ice Cream War, Restless and More
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A collection of BBC dramatisations and readings of William Boyd's award-winning novels and short stories. One of Britain's foremost contemporary writers, William Boyd is renowned worldwide for his bestselling novels, which have been translated into over 30 languages. He has won numerous awards, including the Somerset Maugham Award (for A Good Man in Africa), the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (for An Ice-Cream War) and the Costa Book Award (for Restless).
By: William Boyd
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Eighty-one-year-old widow Maggie Burkhardt came to the Royal Karnak to escape. But not in quite the same way as most other guests who are relaxing at this hotel on the banks of the Nile. Maggie, a compulsive fixer of other people’s lives, may have found herself in hot water at her last hotel in Switzerland and just might have needed to get out of there fast. But here at the Royal Karnak, under the hot Saharan sun, she has a comfortable suite, a loyal confidante in the hotel manager, Ahmed, and a handful of sympathetic friends. One morning, however, Maggie notices a new arrival at check-in.
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Horrible story
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Act of Oblivion
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1660 England. General Edward Whalley and his son-in law Colonel William Goffe board a ship bound for the New World. They are on the run, wanted for the murder of King Charles I—a brazen execution that marked the culmination of the English Civil War, in which parliamentarians successfully battled royalists for control.
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I've loved Robert Harris' Books; but...
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What listeners say about Ordinary Thunderstorms
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- L. Mande
- 07-26-10
Ordinary Thunderstorms
This is a very well written novel. I enjoyed learning about the characters and following the story. I did have a problem with the ending. Unlike Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, virtually every plot twist is left unresolved at the conclusion of the book. Stieg Larsson resolved the plot issues for each book; although, there were still larger problems that could be addressed in a sequel. I never felt he had simply set me up to buy another book.
Mr. Boyd, while an excellent author, left me feeling disappointed.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Mavis Lee
- 06-13-23
Agreed, Not as Good as Restless
As others have mentioned this book is a departure from from Boyd’s novel Restless. Ordinary Thunderstorms, is a novel that meanders, which plays with the tension of a man being hunted, a mistaken killer who calmly seems to launch into survival mode while a hit man is on his tail. I agree with previous reviewers that some plot lines are unresolved and some that are resolved seem to be skimmed over with very little explanation for the particular outcome. The author has left room for a sequel. The narrator, Mr.Emery is effective, though a few times I was confused as it seemed the accents were switched, other than that, he portrayed the characters convincingly.
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Overall
- Stevon
- 07-06-10
a good listen
Chose this book entirely because I'd listened to "Restless" by William Boyd. Wasn't sure what to expect, some of the reviews were pretty bland. But, I thoroughly enjoyed the story. The author is very creative. Set in London, a murder mystery, it grew on me as it progressed. I found myself wanting to get back to the book to find out what had happened, always a good sign. I recommend it.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Pamela Harvey
- 03-20-10
Extra-ordinary Exploration of Identity
This was a terrific read, the writing superb. The characters were detailed and defined, with the city of London and the Thames River a primary player. The details were well documented and the nuanced narrative kept me interested at the expense of other tasks and projects, as I have heard said by other audible.com reviewers talking about other audible books. I think it's this kind of development of minutiae that sustains my attention and separates the excellent novels from the mediocre.
The ending is a giant "maybe" however, and makes the reader want to invent alternate endings, like on some DVDs. As a reader I am not that invested in how a book ends, as I am more interested in character development and the individual experiences of the major figures in a novel. I just don't like abrupt stoppage, and this ending has that "cut off" quality, as though the editors thought the original manuscript was too long.
There were a lot of occasions for suspension of disbelief - in order for the protagonist to accomplish his objectives there had to be certain conditions in place, i.e. (and I don't want to spoil) he needed to be pretty seriously unattached. But novels are part literature and part entertainment, amongst other things, and this one certainly achieves both qualities. I really wanted to keep a notebook with me so that I could record some of the author's phrases which were so articulate, mellifluous, and compelling.
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13 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Anne
- 05-19-10
engrossing, but.......
Its hard not to compare with his other books...Restless was amazing. This story was well told, mostly compelling characters, however our hero made some unbelievable decisions in order to get into the mess around which the story evolves. And all his lies...to everyone. Wish the ending was more conclusive...it could have played out in so many interesting ways.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Dorothy
- 09-07-14
Amazing Story Teller
Any additional comments?
William Boyd is an amazing story teller. I found "Restless" a few months ago and read it on my Kindle. I wondered why I had never really run into Mr. Boyd in my reading travels. I tried a sample of "Ordinary Thunderstorms," but because of my crazy schedule (I run a part time art craft business in addition to working full time) I could not carve out time to read this on the Kindle. I hesitated downloading this Audible addition because the overall rating was only 3.6 stars, and so I vacillated for several months. All I can say is DON'T HESITATE.
This is so well plotted and cleverly told. It is a great suspense novel. It is not formulaic. I also enjoyed it because while it does include some violent illusions, it is not overbearing or gratuitous, the plot moves along swiftly and neatly, almost like a puzzle falling into place. It is also, as other reviewers have pointed out, a fascinating study on the nature of identity. The characters are all fleshed out and Mr. Boyd had imbued all of the primary characters, even the bad guys, with sympathetic human features, no one is a cardboard cutout.
I disagree with those who feel the ending is abrupt. This book allows the reader to savor the experience and continue to think about the possibilities. I highly recommend this book - I will now download Restless and his other offerings. I hope Audible will record all of his books!
The narrator was superb! His voice was perfect and his character delineation is subtle and never overbearing or grating. All in all - a fantastic use of a credit and perfect Audible experience!
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15 people found this helpful
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- JBB32
- 01-06-16
Modern Novel by Boyd
Unlike previous novels like the Powellesque 'Any Human Heart' or the female-narrated 'Restless' and 'Sweet Caress,' (these last two surely making Boyd the Caitlyn Jenner of English or perhaps Scottish letters) 'Ordinary Thunderstorms' is a thoroughly modern novel. Although at times it reads like a erie amalgamation of the style Boyd's countryman John Buchan and his English contemporary, Martin Amis, it is thoroughly entertaining as a thriller and with a sense of humor not as conspicuous in the other novels by this author. Female characters are few but, for once, original, quirky and well-developed. The story line is strong and there is no doubt that a screen adaptation would be successful with a good director. Most issues are resolved by the end of the book except one. Spoiler alert: John Jo is still out there and with an ax to grind!
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- Ilana
- 06-18-16
Doesn't Disappoint!
Very much enjoyed this novel, about a man who is forced to give up his identity and go underground when he witnesses a murder and himself becomes the next target for the killer. A pharma company is about to launch a new cure for asthma, but something is amiss—might they go as far as murder to cover up their tracks? An interesting exploration of the underbelly of London, where the dispossessed and nameless manage to eke out a living. I became a fan of Boyd after my first book by him; he did not disappoint this time either and delivers an interesting suspense filled with intriguing characters.
Will look for more books narrated by Gideon Emery, who delivers a flawless performance.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Linda
- 05-10-12
A good read
This was my second book by this author. The story was very different from Restless which I really liked. While I would have liked another book similar to Restless, I liked this book. It's not as strong a story as Restless but well written. I would recommend this book.
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- J. Locke
- 10-06-17
If you like Restless, you will like this one
Although they are much different in plot - the writing is great, and really kept me on the edge with excellent character development - except I did prefer Restless to this book. I think its just that my preference is for WWII and espionage- so you might find this an interesting read. Im glad I read it though, and would definitely recommend it. After this, I read "The Burning Air" - by Erin Kelly -
If you have been listening to mysteries like me since they were cassettes, Im cautious about choosing books, (I dont know why - its only time and a little bit of money wasted when a book is a stinker. And yet, its just disappointing when you get one - and its hard to know until you are already 1/2 mile away from the house and kind of stuck with it.)
So, I liked it - its like the Burning AIr in that there are some things that are far fetched and its hard to imagine this story really playing out. WHich of course is why I liked Restless so much - the characters seem very real, and the whole plot is of course entirely possible (and probable).
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