A Great Read with Excellent Characters

Where does Single Malt Murder rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Near the top, especially for a first book by the author!

What was one of the most memorable moments of Single Malt Murder?

The story of the history of the glen.

Which character – as performed by Gemma Dawson – was your favorite?

The carpenter.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

A determined smart women turns the whisky business upside down.

Any additional comments?

Murder mysteries have not been my normal choice in the past, but I took a chance on this one and this book has really peaked my interest in the genre. I work through about 40-50 books a year and this proved to be one of my favorites this year. I was very surprised this was the author's first book, as it's an outstanding effort. I've already got the second one. Dan Brown has been one of my favorite authors in a similar genre and his first book wasn't as good as this book. A very strong and believable main character with many excellent supporting ones. The story is fun to follow and really captures a lot of Scotland culture. Lots of great reviews and I see why after listening to it. Only a couple negative reviews that really didn't make much sense to me after I listened to the book. Personally, I found the narration very good, but to each their own.

98 people found this helpful

A very pleasant surprise!!!

In Single Malt Murder by Melinda Mullet, internationally recognized photojournalist Abigail Logan inherits the Abby Glen whiskey distillery in the Scottish Highlands from her Uncle Ben, who brought her up when her parents were killed when she was seven. Traveling to Scotland with her best friend, Patrick, for Ben's funeral, Abi starts getting messages that turn from warnings into death threats. Upon arriving in Scotland, Abi finds that everyone expects her to sell the distillery, one of the best in the world. To make matters worse, Abi learns that the distillery has been a target of sabotage, likely in an effort to force her to sell cheaply. Abi gets through the funeral in a daze and then drinks up a bottle of whiskey, so Patrick fills her up with coffee to sober her up. Now wide awake, the pair go to the distillery to inspect for further sabotage. While searching through the building, Abi spies a barrel of whiskey in which floats a dead body. When she discovers that the body is that of Duff, the friendly bartender, and that the police officer is inclined to call it an accident from trying to sabotage the distillery, Abi determines to use her investigative skills as a photojournalist to get to the truth.

In the midst of her research, Abi gets to know the people of the Scottish community. She meets a woman older than 100 who teaches Abi all about the distillery. She tells Abi about how Ben saved it when he bought the distillery 14 years earlier, with the use of his marketing and other business savvy. But even further, the old woman tells Abi about the earliest days of the place and how her husband took a big risk to make and market a special whiskey that the manufacturing board didn't believe in and was unwilling to invest in. It turned out to be a tremendous success, now worth thousands of pounds a bottle. Though most locals greet Abi with hostility other than trying to woo her to sell the distillery, Hunter, the caretaker of the place, diligently takes over seeing to Abi's care. Further, after getting past their rough start, Abi and Grant, one of the top people in the distillery, become friends and do some investigating together. Finally, Abi's greatest ally, Liam, the wheaten terrier given to Abi by Ben not long before he died, does not want to leave her side and serves as her great protector.

I really had a good time listening to this book. Before I started reading Single Malt Murder, I knew absolutely nothing about whiskey, but the book does a good job of teaching us readers about the distillation process and how whiskey is created, from start to finish, without making us feel stupid. Those who know everything there is to know about making whiskey will not become bored with the lessons on the beverage either. The material taught us about whiskey before getting used in the plot of the book does make the book all the more fascinating.

The plot takes interesting turns and kept me drawn to the book. We keep wondering what is going on and whom we can trust. Which people are behind the sabotage, and what exactly are they trying to manage with this?

The characters in the book are well- drawn and ones we get invested in. We feel connected to Abi and want her to succeed in the whiskey business against the threats of people who seem to want to scare away a woman from ownership of the distillery. We also feel empathy for the murdered Duff, even as we learn some potentially negative things about him. But my favorite character in the book is Liam. The dog really endears himself to all who meet him and to us readers. He serves as Abi's chief protector, living up to the meaning of his name that was given to him by Ben when he gave the dog to Abi.

Gemma Dawson performs the audiobook of Single Malt Murder, and she does a strong job of bringing this book to life. She creates strong accents and voices for each of the characters. The expressions Dawson uses make the book believable and enhance the experience of listening to the audiobook, opposed to reading it on our own.

I thoroughly appreciated the book Single Malt Murder. I enjoyed learning about the whiskey distillation business, a topic I had never found to be of interest before. It blended into the plot perfectly and gave an extra element of fun to what was already a strong and clever plot. I loved the book so much that I already bought book two in the series! I give it five stars!

95 people found this helpful

Not Horrible, but..

I wanted to like this book, but there were too many things that just weren't logical. For example, the main character is a photojournalist. She has more than a nodding acquaintance with cameras, right? Someone is vandalizing her business and has broken into her home, repeatedly. Why not set up security cameras? I've never been to Scotland but surely they have electronic stores.

Another instance, she is alone in the house at night, She notices someone watching the house because they light up a cigarette. Does she call the police? She has been threatened. No.. She takes a sleeping pill and goes to bed. Does that make sense to you?

I don't think I'll be in a hurry to get the next title in the series.

43 people found this helpful

Water Of Life

Good daily deal, $3.95 as it takes you on an adventure through the highlands, land of single malts.
I do use the 1.25x speed to match the author’s intent.
This is entertaining, while explaining the rich secrets of making single malt whisky.
Reader is new to me, and if you like the great Emma Thompson’s reading voice, then you will appreciate this readers cadence as she has the same tones and English dialect.
Were my comments helpful?

36 people found this helpful

Good idea, lazy execution

(Minor spoilers) Every old cliche is here: the worldly protagonist coming in to save the day, the gay best friend(!), the one-dimensional small-town stereotypes, the cops who can't be trusted, the guy she's attracted to so he must be trustworthy. Then there are logical leaps: she's only in town once a month, but she owns a dog? She's a photographer but also does investigative reporting?

Another problem: it can't seem to decide whether it's in American or British English (switches back and forth between miles and kilometers, for example, and uses a lot of American words for things). Which would be fine if it weren't being told first person from a British person's perspective. If you aren't fluent in British English, at least have a British person look it over! The performance is fine, although the Scottish accents sometimes verge on the ridiculous.

(Major spoilers) The protagonist carelessly gets someone killed and doesn't do anything to prevent it, then doesn't seem to care much. Even after that happens, she's reluctant to talk to the police even though the police want to help. So, basically, she'd rather try and solve this thing herself, for no real reason, even thought she might get other people killed by doing so. Then, the protagonist ultimately (literally) stumbles upon the murderers at the end. So no one actually solves this crime; it's solved completely accidentally. What's the point of a mystery when that happens? It's sad, because a good edit early on could have solved a lot of this, but apparently no one made the effort. Shame on the publisher for not fixing all this, because it could have been a good book.

10 people found this helpful

Better than I Thought It Be

I was looking for an easy listening book when I found Single Malt Murder. A rather uncomplicated story set in the highlands of Scotland. But a good murder mystery with an unexpected suspect in the crime.

45 people found this helpful

Great mystery plot, but main character annoying

This mystery has so much going for it. Great plot, an interesting approach to motive and keeps the reader intrigued all the way through. However, the main character makes choices that are completely unbelievable and seems rather dense at points. If someone is threatening you, you tell the police right away. If someone is leaving threatening messages at your home, you'd stay somewhere else and set up a hidden camera to figure out who it is. That was frustrating because I wanted to like the book much more.

75 people found this helpful

Made me want to murder the protagonist.

The whiskey business part is interesting. The part where the main character who is supposedly smart makes every foolish decision possible to try to get killed made me want to send her a bottle of bleach with a note saying, "bleach from an enemy, please drink entire bottle". And then it's worth noting that our sleuth doesn't solve the case.

41 people found this helpful

Excellent

Any additional comments?

This book is a refreshing change of pace. The characters come alive with Gemma's narration. I can't wait for the next installment in the series. In fact, I almost wish I had waited until another book was available...Nah

26 people found this helpful

Mixed thoughts...

First, a few things that may also matter to others (story aside) are crude language, etc. There was no language I personally found offensive and people weren’t hopping in each other’s beds every 5 seconds. The author should be applauded for making a decent story without resorting to these crutches (IMO). That said, I found the storyline itself had a really slow start. Once I thought about giving up, but truly felt like there was potential. Part of it may be that I didn’t care for the reader’s voice/style on the narration parts of the book. The characters’ voices & Scottish accents she nailed, but the “reading part” I found a bit irritating. That said, the overall story I thought was good - and the revealing of the culprit, which did it for me, was *wow*! Never saw it coming. So I’d definitely try the next book in the series.

43 people found this helpful