Christopher Ragland’s reading of this audio book struck just the right balance between laid back, cool without trying, humorous druid and truly scary – “I’ll hack you to death with my bare hands and spit on your grave, this is why I’ve lived so long” – druid.
He also does a great voice for Oberon, the Irish Wolfhound that he wisely chose not to give an Irish accent.
If you’re looking for a light, humorous read, with enough plot to keep you turning the metaphorical pages, enough violence to keep you awake and enough new ideas to keep everything fresh, this is the book for you.
We have one Druid, a coven of witches, a pack of werewolves, a vampire lawyer (not sure which of those two words is scarier), a possessed barmaid, a “merry on whiskey” Irish widow several Fae, three Goddesses and one horseman of the apocalypse and this is just book one of the series.
Most importantly of all, we have a dog with a big heart and a dry sense of humor.
Give this book a try. You won’t regret it.
If you’d like to listen to an extract from “Hounded”, click on the SoundCloud link below
Mike Finn's Fiction 
Mike,
I read the first book of the series (on your recommendation) and am now listening to the audio version of the second in the series.
There are obviously different audio versions for listeners in Europe/UK and the U.S. The audio version I have is read by Luke Daniel. His is a resolutely American voice, with an accent that borders on the flatness of the mid-West. Some of his characterizations are a little bizarre and (to me at least) jarring: Oberon sounds like Cheech Marin (of Cheech and Chong); Coyote is supposed to be – I think – a cowboy, but the drawl is awful. Atticus’ Irish neighbor’s accent veers between Cork and Belfast. That’s one of the big disadvantages of an audiobook – the narration can be a distraction.
One other thing that the audio version is bringing to my attention is what I would call “product placement”; e.g., the car which Coyote steals in the second book is a Ford Explorer, not just an SUV; the listener discovers later that the make of the car is completely irrelevant. When an author includes a detail like that (and Hearne includes a lot of them), it leads me to think that the detail is important to the narrative, and it’s disorienting when it turns out it’s not. It’s easier for me to gloss over these inconsistencies when I’m reading but almost impossible when I’m listening.
All this aside, I’m enjoying the book(s) but I think I will read the subsequent titles.
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PS – I can’t find Ben Aaronovich on audio here, though the books are available. And, if you enjoyed Kevin Hearne’s books, you may want to try the Urban Shaman series, by C.E. Murphy.
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Hello,
Ben Aaronovich is available on audible.com and and audible.co.uk. I’m a member of audible because it means I can buy the books simply and for a lot less money. I’m in the UK and US ones because, living in Switzerland, I sometimes find that one has a book the other doesn’t.
BTW, with one of those flashes of stupidity that publishers sometimes show (Hey, we can’t call it “The Philopsher’s Stone” – no kid will read that . Let’s call it the Sorcerer’s Stone) “Rivers of London” came out in the US as “Midnight Riot”.
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Hi,
There’s definitely something odd with this series. I think they re-recorded the books as they became more popular and put a better reader on it. Although they haven’t re-recorded the whole series yet.
I now find that I cruise audio books by reader as well as by writer. Nothing kills a book like a reader who is a bad fit for the text.
One of my delights was finding that some authors are the best readers of their own work. Barbara Kingsolver reads “Flight Behavior” as brilliantly as she wrote it.
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I absolutely agree about the critical importance of the reader. Rob Inglis (all the Lord of the Rings books) and Jim Dale (all the Harry Potter books) are to my mind the classic examples of how a good narrator can become inextricably associated with the book(s). And a bad narrator, or one who doesn’t fit can really kill a listening experience. One of the reasons I can’t listen to any Lois McMaster Bujold – whose books I love – is that I can’t get past the narrator just not sounding right for the stories.
For an outstanding author/reader, try Summerland by Michael Chabon. Bit of a slow start but definitely worth listening to.
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