Raffles
The Amateur Cracksman
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Narrated by:
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David Rintoul
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By:
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E W Hornung
About this listen
By day, AJ Raffles is a debonair man-about-town and one of England's finest cricketers. By night - he's London’s most notorious thief! Classic crime to rival Sherlock Holmes.
If you walk down London’s Piccadilly, you come across an elegant Georgian building set back from the constant stream of traffic. This is The Albany, an imposing warren of ‘bachelor’ apartments which has been home to a string of celebrities for over two centuries, from Lord Byron to Terence Stamp. But The Albany was also the address for one of the greatest fictional creations of late 19th-century crime writing, AJ Raffles.
The author, E.W. Hornung was not as well-known as his brother-in-law, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, yet in many ways, Hornung was a better writer and Raffles a cleverer star then even Sherlock himself. For Raffles operates on the wrong side of the law, yet remains a magnetic and sympathetic personality.
On the surface, Raffles is a gentleman cricketer straight out of the pages of Boy’s Own - yet from the very first story, The Ides of March, we discover that this is all a pretence: behind the mask is a bankrupt who commits a series of sensational crimes to finance his champagne and cigars lifestyle - and his flat in The Albany.
What separates Raffles from Holmes is that he’s more recognizably human and fallible - he doesn’t always lift the loot, and bad luck throws him a few curve balls. Whether the setting is an English country house or the Australian outback, Raffles’s diamond-hard determination, his lightning ingenuity and profound knowledge of human nature are always on display, and though he could have been hanged for any one of these crimes, Raffles remains a man you wouldn’t mind sharing a cocktail or two with during a night out on the town.
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Raffles is Sherlock Holmes' polar opposite, a foil for great detectives and a man with all the immoral charms of a hero-thief, plus a remarkable ability at cricket. Raffles is the godson of Robin Hood, the model for Cary Grant in "To Catch a Thief," and the inspiration of Leslie Charteris' "The Saint." As the great reinvention of the trickster for the 20th century, Raffles convinces readers to throw away their scruples and follow along for wit, bold adventures, and thrilling suspense.
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Fairly good
- By Paul on 01-31-08
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A little disappointing
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- Length: 5 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
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Raffles is Sherlock Holmes' polar opposite, a foil for great detectives and a man with all the immoral charms of a hero-thief, plus a remarkable ability at cricket. Raffles is the godson of Robin Hood, the model for Cary Grant in "To Catch a Thief," and the inspiration of Leslie Charteris' "The Saint." As the great reinvention of the trickster for the 20th century, Raffles convinces readers to throw away their scruples and follow along for wit, bold adventures, and thrilling suspense.
-
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Fairly good
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By: E.M. Hornung
-
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- Narrated by: full cast, Jeremy Clyde, Michael Cochrane
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Original Recording
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Overall
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Performance
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Jeremy Clyde stars as the cricket playing A. J. Raffles, with Michael Cochrane as his jeweller sidekick, Bunny. Together they embark upon a series of well-planned crimes against the highest of society.
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By: E.W. Hornung
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Overall
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Spring, 1918. The Great War is at a crucial stage, the Germans are making one last push into France, and the Allies are struggling to hold them back. Battle lines are shifting, and men, and their machines, are being sent up and down the front to shore up defenses. Major Heathcliff Lennox, and his batman Greggs, are told to report to their new HQ. They set off on a sunlit day to fly the distance, but the enemy is never far away, and disaster strikes. They're sent crashing to the ground behind enemy lines, where life, death, and love await.
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-
Another great Heathcliff Lennox
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-
The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Burglar [Classic Tales Edition]
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- Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fine-art aficionado. Master of disguise. Jewelry expert. Historian. Gentleman. Burglar. Arsene Lupin is all of these and more. In 1905, Maurice Leblanc introduced his gentleman-burglar in the story "L'Arrestation d'Arsène Lupin". Shortly thereafter, the stories were collected as one single volume. In these charming adventures, Lupin orchestrates a myriad of extravagant heists in the very face of the determined Inspector Ganimard.
-
-
The Original Gentleman Thief
- By David S. Mathew on 09-24-17
By: Maurice Leblanc
-
Burglars Can't Be Choosers
- By: Lawrence Block
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this first in a series of wickedly funny mysteries, best-selling author Lawrence Block introduces Bernie Rhodenbarr, sometimes burglar, sometimes sleuth. Pulling only an occasional, very discreet job, Bernie manages to maintain his comfortable New York City apartment and keep his unorthodox vocation a closely-guarded secret. Every burglar knows never to trust anonymous phone calls. But when the caller offers easy money for an hour's work, Bernie can't ignore the job.
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More collections like this, please!
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What listeners say about Raffles
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Darryl
- 03-24-14
lot of fun
a little like a Sherlock as thief idea. he has a cohort who helps much like Watson and who may have written their adventures down later in life. the episodes are fun and suspenseful and having done it shortly after To Catch a Thief found some similarities that make me think Dodge had read this, but both are very enjoyable nonetheless.
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4 people found this helpful
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- John
- 02-27-17
Raffles and Bunny Are Bad. And That’s Good.
Ok, say these stories weren’t penned by Arthur Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law. Say there was no Arthur Conan Doyle, no Holmes-Watson stories—no model for the author of Raffles to stand on its head for his own purposes.
The Raffles-Bunny stories would still be delightful; well-crafted, well-written and, in this instance, superbly read. One critic has called them, "dark, morally uncertain, yet convincingly, reassuringly English." It’s that last part that makes them so palatable. Raffles and Bunny play fair; they eschew violence and, in spite of Bunny’s regular attacks of nerves, go about their larcenous activities lightheartedly, as if it were just another match on the playing fields of Eton.
I suppose one could explore the inner meaning of our delight; how we all yearn to be the bad guy, revel in the thrill of flouting authority, need to unchain the old Id once in a while. On second thought, better not. Just stand back and enjoy.
Watson often opines that if Holmes ever turned to crime he would be uncatchable. Sadly, in the last story of this volume an arrest is made. But fear not. Just as with Holmes’ “death” at the Reichenbach Falls, the story doesn’t end there.
Do I have to add that David Rintoul does a masterly job? He has a great script here and he simply makes the most of it. The only flaw in this otherwise perfect setup is a pronounced over-eagerness on the part of our editor so get to the next story. The moment—no, the nanosecond—one tale ends, the title of the next is shot at you and you’re off on the next adventure.
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6 people found this helpful
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- clridenhour
- 05-12-17
Story skips past the end...
I love the narrator for this book. Unfortunately on every story I listened to it skips ahead to the next story just as the previous story approaches the reveal. So frustrating! I listened to three stories before I finally gave up!
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