Grasshopper
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Narrated by:
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Jenny Sterlin
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By:
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Barbara Vine
About this listen
Ruth Rendell has held her place atop the world of mystery writers for decades, writing dozens of books that have won numerous awards, captivated countless fans, and collected widespread critical acclaim. Writing as Barbara Vine, she is the Edgar Award-winning author of such books as Chimney Sweeper’s Boy and King Solomon’s Carpet. Young Clodagh Brown loves to climb, especially the giant electrical pylons that form a neat row outside her parents’ home. When this obsession breeds tragedy, her shamed family sends her to London for college. As a respite from insufferable classes, she begins climbing atop the local houses with her unique band of friends. But it is a practice that lands the group in a kidnapping scandal - and leads to a terrifying climax on the rooftops.
Grasshopper is a meticulously crafted novel - a sharp and textured thriller infused with layers of psychological suspense. Narrator Jenny Sterlin steps into Clodagh’s unique world and takes readers on a rousing adventure through the Victorian neighborhoods of London.
©2000 Kingsmarkham Enterprises Ltd. (P)2000 Recorded Books, LLCListeners also enjoyed...
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- By Gladys on 07-29-15
By: Erin Kelly
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A Change of Climate
- A Novel
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Sandra Duncan
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Ralph and Anna Eldred are an exemplary couple, devoting themselves to doing good. 30 years ago as missionaries in Africa, the worst that could happen did. Shattered by their encounter with inexplicable evil, they returned to England, never to speak of it again. But when Ralph falls into an affair, Anna finds no forgiveness in her heart, and 30 years of repressed rage and grief explode, destroying not only a marriage but also their love, their faith, and everything they thought they were.
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Beautifully written
- By Patricia S. on 10-11-15
By: Hilary Mantel
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A Great Deliverance
- Inspector Lynley, Book 1
- By: Elizabeth George
- Narrated by: Donada Peters
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Into Keldale's pastoral web of old houses and older secrets comes Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley, the eighth earl of Asherton. Along with the redoubtable Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, Lynley has been sent to solve a savage murder that has stunned the peaceful countryside. For fat, unlovely Roberta Teys has been found in her best dress, an ax in her lap, seated in the old stone barn beside her father's headless corpse. Her first and last words were "I did it. And I'm not sorry".
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good debut novel
- By Stevon on 11-11-19
By: Elizabeth George
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Late in the Day
- A Novel
- By: Tessa Hadley
- Narrated by: Abigail Thaw
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Alexandr and Christine and Zachary and Lydia have been friends since they first met in their 20s. Thirty years later, Alex and Christine are spending a leisurely summer’s evening at home when they receive a call from a distraught Lydia: She is at the hospital. Zach is dead. In the wake of this profound loss, the three friends find themselves unmoored; all agree that Zach, with his generous, grounded spirit, was the irreplaceable one they couldn’t afford to lose. Inconsolable, Lydia moves in with Alex and Christine. The loss warps their relationships.
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It's all in the performance
- By RueRue on 02-08-19
By: Tessa Hadley
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Mr. Fox
- A Novel
- By: Helen Oyeyemi
- Narrated by: Carol Boyd
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently....
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A Great Novel, just Poor for Audio
- By James A. Dittes on 08-13-16
By: Helen Oyeyemi
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Old Filth
- By: Jane Gardam
- Narrated by: Bill Wallace
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Sir Edward Feathers has had a brilliant career, from his early days as a lawyer in Southeast Asia, where he earned the nickname Old Filth (FILTH being an acronym for Failed In London Try Hong Kong) to his final working days as a respected judge at the English bar. Yet through it all he has carried with him the wounds of a difficult and emotionally hollow childhood. Now an 80-year-old widower living in comfortable seclusion in Dorset, Feathers is finally free from the regimen of work and the sentimental scaffolding that has sustained him throughout his life.
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Literature at its finest!
- By M. Dyson on 07-29-23
By: Jane Gardam
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The Muse
- A Novel
- By: Jessie Burton
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin, Maria Elena Infantino
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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England, 1967. Odelle Bastien is a Caribbean émigré trying to make her way in London. When she starts working at the prestigious Skelton Institute of Art, she discovers a painting rumored to be the work of Isaac Robles, a young artist of immense talent and vision whose mysterious death has confounded the art world for decades. The excitement over the painting is matched by the intrigue around the conflicting stories of its discovery.
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Mixed narration
- By Amy Fleury on 08-05-16
By: Jessie Burton
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Gold Dust
- By: Kimberley Freeman
- Narrated by: Jennifer Vuletic
- Length: 18 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Three women linked by their blood, their dreams...and their sins. From Leningrad in the '70s to America and London in the present day, Kimberley Freeman's new novel follows the lives of two sisters, Lena and Natalia, and their cousin, Sofi, as they move away from Russia and all they have known. Despite promising to always take care of each other, a pact to meet every winter is shattered as their lives change and long-held resentments begin to surface. Can that resentment turn to hatred? To murder?
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It's just not the same without Caroline Lee
- By Maria on 12-04-17
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Some Kind of Fairy Tale
- A Novel
- By: Graham Joyce
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Twenty years ago, 16-year-old Tara Martin disappeared from a small town in the heart of England. Now, her sudden return and the mind-bending tale of where she’s been will challenge our very perception of the truth. For 20 years after Tara Martin disappeared, her parents and her brother, Peter, lived in denial of the grim fact that she was gone for good. Then suddenly on Christmas Day, the doorbell rings at her parents’ home, and there, dishevelled and slightly peculiar looking, Tara stands. It’s a miracle, but alarm bells are ringing for Peter. Tara’s story just does not add up.
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Extremely Well Done
- By Amanda on 07-11-12
By: Graham Joyce
What listeners say about Grasshopper
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Lynn
- 04-13-24
Creepy - literally
What I liked: Ingenious and bizarre plot. Terrific writing. Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine was a master storyteller blessed with genius level powers of visualization and imagination. What I disliked: I don't think there is a relatable character, or likable character, in this book. How I managed to finish this book: I pretended it was science fiction - the plot lines were so compelling I had to listen all the way to the end. I banished the idea of the characters as people, and regarded them as alien beings. What helped: I set the dreary narration to 1.2, which made it tolerable.
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- Beth
- 09-08-12
Pretty Solid
This is a pretty solid novel. But it didn't quite do it for me. Maybe a little too slow moving? The characters and story a little too far fetched? I'm not sure. I didn't not enjoy it but it didn't captivate me the way really good books do. In other words, I could stop listening without feeling that pull to keep reading.
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- Linda C
- 11-17-21
One of Barbara Vine's best, beautifully read
This book is unusual for Vine in that the first-person narrator, telling the story from ten years after the fact, lets us know that she is happily married, owns a successful business and thoroughly enjoys her work. The dark themes which are inevitably recounted may have informed her past, but she has won through to achieve an enviable present.
Parenthood, childhood and the definition of responsibility are examined from multiple angles throughout the almost leisurely pacing of the story. Why do people become parents, what duties do parents and children owe to each other and how does each cope with the failures of the other? What does it mean to be a good parent, a good child? Is such goodness even possible? What realizations are the prerequisites of forgiveness? The incidents which forcibly bring these questions to bear on the young lives of the characters are as horrific as any in Vine's novels, but they are softened by the perspective of time. With only one exception, we know who is going to die before we witness the death, and even that one is predictable. No one escapes justice, but honest self-examination and the willingness to take responsibility for the effects of one's actions brings the opportunity for healing in the long run. The novel is essentially the protagonist's account of her own journey toward that understanding and in that sense is perhaps Vine's most valuable novel. I found it impossible not to recognize my own failures as the protagonist recognized hers.
Barbara Vine is, of course, the pseudonym of Baroness Ruth Rendell, used for stories which are explorations of character rather than the superbly crafted mysteries she is most famous for. I like Vine's books best. They are always well worth the time it takes to plunge into them and stay to the end, although it is never an easy journey. Her eye is nothing if not unflinching and she challenges her readers to be equally truthful.
Jenny Sterlin is one of my favorite audiobook readers. She has a beautiful voice and a thorough mastery of her material.
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- Yennta
- 11-15-23
Needed some editing
Some of her books are in need of editing. They are repetitive and redundant. This is one of them. It could easily lose about 1/4 or even 1/3 of the text and it would have been tight and great. The reader was GREAT
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- Jean L
- 03-26-15
Sloppy writting and badsound editing
Is there anything you would change about this book?
There is much, much too much nonessential text. You just want her to get on with it, please.
Would you be willing to try another book from Barbara Vine? Why or why not?
I was enthralled by The Chimney Sweepers Boy, but that had an outstanding reader.
Did the narration match the pace of the story?
Jenny Sterlin has a very nice voice, but the only way I can describe her narration is "mournful." The other problem is the sound editing. There are unjustified pauses between each sentence that just make the whole experience endless.
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- Jessica
- 04-18-18
My New Favorite Mystery Novel
If you could sum up Grasshopper in three words, what would they be?
Entertaining, Thrilling, and Exciting.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Clodagh Brown is my favorite character because she is a well-developed, likable, and complex character.
Which scene was your favorite?
The best scenes are those that take place on the rooftops.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
This audiobook made me laugh and cry.
Any additional comments?
Barbara Vine does it again, but this time, the character development is incomparable. This a well-written and well-narrated story. Grasshopper is a must listen.
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- John Tangney
- 10-28-23
Not her best
Perhaps it was the dreary tone of the reader but this dragged. Not much happened, slowly. I found it hard to like any of the characters.
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- Hilary
- 08-05-16
Too tedious to finish.
Jenny Sterlin is one of my favorite readers, but even her performance could not carry Grasshopper. The novel has too many unpleasant characters in tedious and repetitive situations, while the more sympathetic main character is just not compelling. I stopped with 6 hours to go. Pity, I really enjoyed The Chimney Sweeper's Boy by Barbara Vine.
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- taylor davis
- 07-24-14
should be half the length
What would have made Grasshopper better?
I like some of Vine's books a lot but this one is too long for the story. She repeats herself continuously; on and on and on with very little development in the plot.
Triple yawn.
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- Amazing
- 12-30-17
Total waste of time.
This has to be one of the very worst books I have listened to. There seemed to be no point whatsoever. Don’t waste your credit. ☹️
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