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Barking Up the Right Tree
- Poppy, Book 1
- Narrated by: Helen Keeley
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
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Barking Up the Right Tree
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Summary
When Emily's boyfriend walks out, she is devastated. As she is puzzling over what to do with the rest of her life, she is surprised to learn that her great aunt has died, leaving Emily her cottage in the picturesque Wiltshire village of Ashton Mead. This inheritance comes with a condition – Emily must take care of her great aunt's pet. Not knowing what to expect, Emily sets off for the village, hoping to make a new life for herself.
In the village, she soon makes friends with Hannah who runs the Sunshine Tea Shoppe, and meets other residents of the village where she decides to settle. All is going well...until her unknown pet arrives. Then Emily's ex-boyfriend turns up and against the advice of her new friends, she takes him back.
When her next-door neighbour's daughter disappears in mysterious circumstances, Emily decides to investigate, unwittingly putting her own life in danger...
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Critic reviews
"Helen Keeley enlivens this cozy mystery, set in a quaint English village.... Smarmy, egotistical Ben and Alice, whose mood shifts are truly disturbing, are Keeley's best creations. The pilogue features a lively interview with author Leigh Russell, who shares how a real dog inspired Poppy and her new cozy series. An entertaining listen even for non-dog people." (AudioFIle)
"Leigh Russell has become one of the most impressively dependable purveyors of the English police procedural." (The Times)
What listeners say about Barking Up the Right Tree
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Jay
- 22-03-23
Should of been great, was a massive disappointment
It pains me to have to do this, but I need to explain about why I am so disappointed with this book and had to return it. Warning there are a couple of spoilers. But I did listen to the whole book and, well…
I am a huge, huge Murder Mystery fan and have now listened to hundreds of books over lockdown and the last couple of years, I spend more time listening to books then watching TV. I have never been as frustrated and a tad cross about a book as this one.
I must give a massive amount of love and respect to Leigh Russell for taking the time and effort to write this book. It is no mean feat. I so wanted this book to be good. But regretfully it doesn’t work for me and feels like a massive, missed opportunity.
Which is a monumental shame because Helen Keeley’s performance as the narrator is absolutely fantastic, it’s this and Poppy the dog that made me finish the book.
The premise for the book, Emily our 24-year-old protagonist splits up from her immature boyfriend who leaves her. We find out more about Emily and her financial struggles after losing her job and the fact that she is practically broke and will essentially be homeless. Then out of the blue miraculously discovers her great aunt who she never talks to has passed away and has bequeathed Emily a house in the countryside. But, under the ‘strict conditions’ of the will, she must look after her aunts pet our amazing little mate Poppy the dog, ‘who is adorable’, or will lose the house. Ok, not the most original cosy mystery setup, but let’s roll with it!
We discover aunty sadly died falling down the stairs. We also know from reading the summary; that something shady is going on when Emily’s new next-door neighbour's daughter disappears in mysterious circumstances?
So, our Emily decides to investigate, unwittingly putting her own life in danger…
Now, this all worked perfectly well’ish, right up until the point I realised I was not having fun and I completely hated Emily, our 24-year-old protagonist who I found to be a petulant child who is an absolute idiot, rude and frankly unlikable. This is all brought to ahead by her bad boy archetype boyfriend who I also hated with a passion, who comes back into the picture and is so, so, so unlikeable and narcissistic I wanted him brutally murdered, with a hammer or other equally blunt instrument. Actually, I wanted them both murdered!
And there is where this whole thing falls off the sofa and onto a load of loose Lego bricks and hurts itself. The thing is, Emily and Ben should have been murdered!
There is no pay off or satisfaction for these characters who are villainised, they try to blackmail and extort money from some old ladies. This is not on and frankly unredeemable in my book but just glossed over and forgotten. Emily and Ben’s exaggerated sense of self-importance/worth and pathetic malicious behaviour is childish and disgusting! They should have been murdered.
Emily is uncharacteristic of a fun, charming and personable protagonist who we relate to. I don’t like her or her boyfriend. I want a sense of justice and retribution for their actions.
The murderer is so blatantly obvious it felt like I was being mocked and was actually painful to listen to at points. The motivation for taking living things and making them ‘non-living’ things was just dumb and unnecessary, this could have been so much simpler and yet intriguing in its ramifications.
Also randomly, Emily’s mum is so off the plot she seems to be a character written from the 1950’s with her outdated attitude to the male, female relationship dynamic.
This is where I feel the massively missed opportunity is. I was expecting Leigh Russell to create these two extremely unlikable characters who we believe to be our main characters only to do an Alfred Hitchcock Psycho on us and then to have them both murdered in strange and mysterious ways. This is where ‘unwittingly putting her own life in danger’ comes from.
The book series is called ‘A Poppy Mystery Tale’, I wanted the only decent characters that I had a connection with to be the grounded Hannah who is likable, cheeky and kind to be the main protagonist who then takes ownership of the lovable ball of fluff Poppy and takes on the mystery of the murders of Emily, Ben with Toby and in the process discovers the shady goings on along with the murder of the great aunt!
The suspension of disbelief will only stretch so far, this would of made so much sense not only from a story prospective but from a practical one, Emily is broke, she has very little money for herself and Poppy, all the vet and house bills, council tax, home and pet insurance and food for them both, Emily can’t financially run the house she has inherited, it’s just a MacGuffin.
I think the story would have been much more interesting if it had lent more on the villainisation of Emily and Ben so that when they are bumped off for trying to find out who the bad person(s) is. The person(s) they could potentially blackmail. The bad person(s) has no hesitation in ending Emily and Ben. Thus, we are actually glad this has happened as it couldn’t have happened to two nicer people!
Then we start to see our new and improved principle character Hannah as she tries to figure out what has happened and investigates the investigationing thing with the help of her male friend and potential love interest Toby, he is a Libra, modestly handsome and likes long walks in the countryside with cute dogs that have cute owners! Who also happens to be a teacher of criminology?
I personally think this could have been a fantastic cosy mystery with a refreshing twist and feel. But unfortunately, it’s a generic story with some very unlikable characters and a very cute dog.
This is the first of a series of books, I truly wish Leigh Russell has huge success with this book, it sadly didn’t work for me. But I am hopeful that Leigh will break the mould with the next book and give us something genuinely funny, playful and refreshing in its twistiness of storytelling and have decent likeable characters as well as bad person(s).
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Shorty
- 22-03-23
Just ok
I listened to this one, feeling very frustrated with the leading character, Emily. Who would think blackmail was OK?
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