The Way Through the Woods Audiobook By Colin Dexter cover art

The Way Through the Woods

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The Way Through the Woods

By: Colin Dexter
Narrated by: Kevin Whately
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They called her the Swedish Maiden: the beautiful young tourist who disappeared on a hot summer's day somewhere in North Oxford. Twelve months later, the case remained unsolved, pending further developments.

On holiday in Lyme Regis, Chief Inspector Morse is startled to read a tantalizing article in The Times about the missing woman - an article which lures him back to Wytham Woods near Oxford...and straight into the most extraordinary murder investigation of his career.

© Colin Dexter; (P) Macmillan Publishers Ltd Mystery Suspense Thriller & Suspense Fiction

Critic reviews

"Honest detection, illicit sex, puns and anagrams galore, Morse's trademark drinking and dour byplay with colleagues and suspects, plus a plot as agile as Dexter's best - in short, everything you could possibly want in an English detective story. Bolt the door and enjoy." (Kirkus Reviews)
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Morse is acerbic to the MAX. He uncovers later after later in this fascinating abridged Audible recording. Kevin Stately is a superb narrator 😇😇😇😇😇

Twists and turning Morse

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Very good except the tape was cut off before end annoying thank you Walda

Love Morse

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It's a wonderful story, but "abridged" means there's quite a bit left out. After reading the book, and seeing all the things that were omitted , I can kind of understand why those decisions were made . However those omissions really detract from the enjoyment of the story . The narration is lovely of course . But if you really want to understand what happens in this book you have to read it in its original form . That's why only give it four stars .

Kevin Whately could read the dictionary and I would still listen

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I enjoyed the narration by Kevin Whately. It was as entertaining as watching an episode of Morse or Inspector Lewis. Well done!

Enjoyed the excellent narration

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A good tale with Dexter’s customary twists and turns. Morse is a certainly an unconventional detective.

Typical Morse

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After reading a prior Morse story that was superb-this was too convoluted and didn't hold my interest as much. Though overall it was worthwhile-mainly due to the brilliant Kevin Whatley narrating. There were too many threads for a 3 hour audiobook. I hope the others in the series-another 11 or so-will not be the same. Audible-if you are listening(good pun eh?) I think you should make these stories unabridged like the Maisie Dobbs mysteries which are also exceptional.

Disappointing

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I looked closely at the cover to make sure this wasn't abridged, but missed the info further down the listing. It is abridged, and very poorly, at that. I have read the book (twice) and even I was a little bit confused about what was going on. A lot of what makes Morse so enjoyable was slashed. A lot of small details that build the case were omitted. Shame. Kevin Whately did a great job narrating. I especially liked his Detective Lewis! 😉 He didn't sound so Oxford-trained when he did Morse but I'll forgive him for that. He is, after all, Kevin Whately. It would have been an excellent offering if it had not been abridged.

Not so obvious that it was abridged.

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I couldn't figure out why it all seemed so confusing. Then I happened to pick up a copy of the actual paper (dead tree) book from the library, purely by mistake. I thought I'd match the audio to the book, just for fun. I was shocked to discover that the audio is a tiny fraction of the real book. No wonder it makes so little sense! Whole sections are missing, like the diary entries and the many of the newspaper articles. Even narrative paragraphs appear to have been run through an LLM to make them shorter (and hence, dumber.)

Now let's talk about Mr. Whately. I loved his Lewis character, and that's almost certainly why he got this gig. But he's a TV actor, not a voice actor. He fails make an adequate distinction between one character and another. Or, as my kids used to say when they were little, "do the voices." Now Coli Dexter's writing does make this more challenging. Even in print, it's sometimes hard to track who's saying what. But this is precisely where a good voice actor steps in to delineate the characters with clarity. Sorry, Kevin. You're an awesome Lewis but you need to put a bit more into voice work.

Heavily abridged to the point of being nonsensical

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