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    Trouble in Nuala
    Trouble in Nuala
    Trouble in Nuala
    Audiobook4 hours

    Trouble in Nuala

    Written by Harriet Steel

    Narrated by Matthew Lloyd Davies

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    When Inspector Shanti de Silva moves with his English wife, Jane, to his new post in the sleepy hill town of Nuala, he anticipates a more restful life than police work in the big city entails. However an arrogant plantation owner with a lonely wife, a crusading lawyer, and a death in suspicious circumstances present him with a riddle that he will need all his experience to solve.

    Set on the exotic island of Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka) in the 1930s, Trouble in Nuala is an entertaining and absorbing mystery spiced with humor and a colorful cast of characters.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateNov 13, 2018
    ISBN9781541445833
    Trouble in Nuala

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    Reviews for Trouble in Nuala

    4/5

    35 ratings9 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Lovely,mature characters in a story that gently flows yet brings all the drama one could wish for in a detective novel... & Beautifully read... perfectly matching the pace of the story & strong characterisation that brought depth to the people & the landscape... Highly recommend! Well done Harriet Steel...an excellent book

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This is a lovely series. Taking place during British rule in Ceylon the main characters are inspector de silva and his British wife. Lovely imagery, well written and narrated. So happy to discovered this gentle and interesting series.
    • 4/5
      A unique setting and complex mystery that keeps you guessing and proves a quick read.
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed this book, with it's calm story and the way the 1930s Take your heart
    • 4/5
      Moving to the small town of Nuala, in 1934, Inspector Shanti de Silva hopes for a more peaceful position. Unfortunately one of the plantation owners is accused of doing harm to one of his workers, and the owner is later found dead. de Silva is convinced that that man was murdered, but who had a motive.
      An enjoyable well-written mystery, a good start to a new series.
    • 5/5
      Ceylon, 1930s, law-enforcement, lawyers ***** 1930s Ceylon, the police, the overbearing British, and murder. It's not hard to figure out who will be the victim, but the who and how are posers til the end of the book! An excellent listen on its own merit, but listening to Matthew Lloyd Davies is a real treat.
    • 4/5
      Bring from Sri Lanka, I may have approached this with some doubt in my mind. How well would a foreigner depict my country and its vibrant culture? Well, I did find a few questionable moments, but overall, I must say the book was quite satisfactory!
      My first query was - where exactly is Nuala? Some reviews mentioned Kandy, but that is incorrect as many people drive to and from Kandy in the story. I think it is Nuwara-Eliya, which is quite a mouthful to say, and hence quite understandably shortened to Nuala.
      If the author's descriptions are to be believed, not much has changed from the 1930's to present day Nuwara-Eliya. Hoppers / roti and hot sambol or curry for breakfast, slow trains, even the description of some of the stalls and the market in the town sounded familiar. The author has obviously researched Sri Lankan country life, and this could be seen in many places. For example, where she describes the needless killing of elephants by the British as a sport.
      I did find some details difficult to accept. The protagonist de Silva is a Sinhalese policeman from Colombo who was recently transferred to the hill country. However, he speaks Tamil quite fluently. Those who did receive an education during the Colonial era studied in English, while the native languages were not taught. One would learn it at home. So I found it difficult to believe that de Silva would be so conversant with what is basically the third language of the country. (Although it is accurate that Tamil is widely spoken in the tea estates since 50% of the population are of Indian origin.)
      The worst blunder in my opinion is the choice of name for the lawyer - Ravindra Tagore - really? Wasn't there any other name that could be used? Rabindranath Tagore immediately jumps to mind...
      My favourite aspect was de Silva's take on British culture. The little mental notes and comments that littered the text. I loved the way his wife kept correcting his usage of idiomatic speech - "a warning shot across the ship would be a better way of dealing with it - across the bows, dear"
      The mystery itself was not as complex as an Agatha Christie novel, but then very few authors reach that height! Overall, an enjoyable experience and a very cozy mystery.

    • 4/5
      Inspector de Silva and his English wife Jane waited until they were in their forties to marry. Yes, they'd finally met the person they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with, but they were also old enough to know their own minds and not care about any raised eyebrows. Why the raised eyebrows? Because it is 1930s colonial Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and mixed marriages aren't quite the done thing. Shanti enjoys reading classics like Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe while Jane prefers Agatha Christie. Shanti loves the spicy foods of his native Ceylon and finds English food bland and heavy. Jane would never eat chilis for breakfast. These two main characters in Harriet Steel's Trouble in Nuala are fun to get to know-- and there's more.This book has a marvelous sense of time and place. Readers learn about a country under British colonial rule and the problems with which it must deal. Not only that, but the descriptions of the landscape and wildlife of Ceylon are vivid and help to bring the whole book to life. Two examples: farmers set off firecrackers to scare away wild elephants and prevent them from destroying crops, and then there are stunning scenes like "the startling lime-green splash of a paddy field where egrets stood like white question marks." Although the killer's identity isn't all that difficult to deduce, my appetite for the other books in this series will not be denied. The only real problem I have with Trouble in Nuala is that it's too short!
    • 4/5
      It's February in 1930s Ceylon (today's Sri Lanka); a gentle frost touches the grass; the aromatic frangipani and sweet roses perfume the morning air. Such is the setting of this first in series book featuring Inspector Shanti di Silva. With the British ruling Ceylon, di Silva is ever so polite and equally careful not to upset the powers that be. However, he is not easily persuaded to drop an investigation just because it's uncomfortable. He is intelligent and thoughtful and adores his lovely and caring British wife, Jane. Such a mixed marriage was unusual in its day yet somehow, they made it work. Di Silva is requested by an area British official to look into accusations that a local English plantation owner has inappropriately flogged a worker - essentially, Di Silva's on damage control duty. Matters heat up a bit and pretty soon, there's a dead body on Di Silva's hands and a murder to unravel. From the atmospheric descriptions of the land, climate and peoples, one is transported back in time to a place of exotic beauty and its stark cultural differences. It's a relaxing read with a tidy ending. Definitely, a great start to this new series. I am grateful to author Harriet Steel and Goodreads First Reads for having provided a free copy of this book. Their generosity, however, did not influence this review - the words of which are mine alone.Synopsis (from book's back cover):When Inspector Shanti de Silva moves with his English wife Jane to his new post in the sleepy hill town of Nuala he anticipates a more restful life than police work in the big city entails. However an arrogant plantation owner with a lonely wife, a crusading lawyer, and a death in suspicious circumstances present him with a riddle that he will need all his experience to solve. Set on the exotic island of Ceylon in the 1930s, Trouble in Nuala is an entertaining and relaxing mystery spiced with humour and a colourful cast of characters.