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    The Blackbird Papers: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Blackbird Papers: A Novel
    Unavailable
    The Blackbird Papers: A Novel
    Audiobook11 hours

    The Blackbird Papers: A Novel

    Written by Ian Smith

    Narrated by Brent Jennings

    3/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A rainy night . . . A stranded motorist . . . A Good Samaritan passerby … a Nobel Prize-winning professor . . . The setup for a shocking murder designed to cover up an even more sinister crime . . .

    The Blackbird Papers marks the debut of Ian Smith, a major new talent in crime fiction, and of Sterling Bledsoe, his smart and occasionally combative sleuth.

    World-renowned Dartmouth professor Wilson Bledsoe is returning from a party celebrating his latest honor when he encounters a broken-down pickup on the secluded country road to his home. The next day, the discovery of his body with a vicious racist epithet carved into his chest leads to the quick arrest of two loathsome white supremacists. The local authorities seem ready to accept the case at face value as a racial hate crime. But the murdered professor's brother, FBI agent Sterling Bledsoe, has inserted himself into the investigation and isn't ready to buy into this pat solution. A look around his brother's lab and brief interviews with his students and colleagues pique Sterling's curiosity about Wilson's pet project: a nearly completed paper on the mysterious deaths of hundreds of local blackbirds.

    Fast-paced and cleverly constructed, The Blackbird Papers introduces a major new talent in mystery and crime fiction.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateMar 5, 2004
    ISBN9781415904817
    Unavailable
    The Blackbird Papers: A Novel
    Author

    Ian Smith

    Ian Smith was born and brought up in Edinburgh where he was educated at Heriot’s and the University of Edinburgh before joining the army and later setting up his own dental practice. He played nine Tests for Scotland from 1969 to 1970. He lives in Norfolk. 

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    Reviews for The Blackbird Papers

    3/5

    25 ratings2 reviews

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    • 1/5
      Leaden prose. Appalling dialog. Made it to page 22. Harlan Coben blurbs this; he should be ashamed of himself.
    • 3/5
      The plot was good but not executed in a way that excited me as a reader. Quite obviously there was a lot of research put into this book. The ecological thriller bored me. I was lost with all of the scientific terminology, etc. Ian Smith did ok breaking down concepts. The mystery became so deep that the plot was hard to keep up with. Many of the clues throughout the story were too easy for Sterling to find. If he needed certain information, he found it. The number of supporting characters clouded my ability to remember who is who and who did what. For the most part this is a so/so detective story with some racial overtones, which disappear after the first few chapters. He never explained the reason for "Nigger" carved into Wilson's chest. Also, what I found weird was that his brother was murdered but there wasn't a scene with Sterling telling his girlfriend and though he was out of town dealing with this tragedy, she never called to check on him. Smith needed more character development. I do wish there were more detail given regarding the relationship between Agent Sterling Bledsoe and his brother. It also would have been helpful to know how (or why) Sterling decided to leave the Agency to teach part-time.