So I enjoy watching Jeremy Vine on his channel 5 show and was looking forward to reading a novel by his quirky self.

Edward Temmis is a local radio host who is let go by his employer after struggling with the grief of losing his son.

He is approached by a young woman one day who asks for his help investigating her grabdmothers death. Her gran was a regular listener to his show and she has reason to believe she was murdered. This leads to finding out about other suspicious deaths of Edwards listeners and so the sleuthing starts.

I listened to this audio and found the first few chapters long winded and hard to get into. It did improve but there's possibly a bit more editing required for this story.

Thanks Netgalley for this audiobook

3.5⭐️ ~ 4 stars just a little bit of a slow burn at the beginning, so I'm finding it a little difficult to fully star just 3.5 as really between that and 4 stars. Taking into account the timing for me personally that I listened to this one, it is more than likely due to the 4!

I feel this does particularly well as an audiobook, especially because it is a story based on a radio presenter Edward who crosses paths with Stevie, whose grandmother was an avid listener of Edwards who tragicly passes away. Stevie isn't convinced that the passing was all as it appeared to be and so together Edward after having experienced his own tragic grief of loosing his son feels complled to assist Stevie in trying to ascertain what happened. They also are joined by Kim who is Edwards ex, this story although rhw beginning is a little slow paced I believe this is to allow the listener / reader space, time to digest the storyline and get to know the characters which definitely does help without feeling overwhelmed then the various plots and twists begin to unfold.

It was very well narrated, easy to listen to, and flowed very well. All characters were brought into their own by narrator Jeremy Vine.

With thanks to Netgalley & Harper Collins UK Audio for this ARC in return for an open, honest review. Best wishes with publication in April. 🎧📚

I requested this title expecting a Thursday Murder Club type feel but that is not what was delivered. I felt the characters were just there and my mind kept wondering when listening to the audio. I am seasoned audio reader/listener and my mind never wonders when engaged. I think the narrator, the author (Jeremy Vine) was also just very monotone. I am not UK based so was unaware of what he sounded like and if I had known I wouldn't have requested the audio. Narrators matter and they can make or break a novel.

3.5 Stars. There are amateur detectives and then there are amateur authors who write detective stories. Mr.Vine's book falls somewhere in between.

Edward Tennis has been on compassionate leave from his radio station after his son dies in a fatal accident. His loyal audience base is 60+ and the radio station is now trying to attract the young crowd and hence his show is being replaced. He is also in a confused relationship with a married woman.

When one of his audience member dies in mysterious circumstance and her niece tells her that she was trying to reach him before dying, he wants to help. He, along with the niece and Kim and battling his own demons, he sets about trying to reach the bottom of the mystery.

The writing is fluid and in the first two chapters he sets up the character brilliantly. The book however suffers from a cardinal sin of mystery novels - of being predictable. It is like the author is playing poker with so much tell - you can see every herring he is trying to hide.
It felt like you were waiting for the characters to catch up with the reader.

Lot of promise with writing. Maybe he should write a great drama than mystery.

I really enjoyed this audiobook! The story was good, characters nicely written, having their own personality and backstory. Edward, a former radio talk show host has lost his son. Now he loses his job. But he still wants to help people, and he gets involved into solving a murder, and finding friends, community, and love. Although some of the plots were quite predictable, the writing was good enough to keep me interested. Reading the story felt somehow comforting, could be the familiar voice narrating, could be the setting, could be the characters. Narration was... unpredictable, quite fast paced at times, and not how I'd have read it in my mind in others, but it did keep me interested. I hope there is a second book, as there are some stories and points that I'd like to see concluded.

This book just wasn’t for me. It’s a story for three people brought together by tragedy and are not taking it lying down but want to solve it. The main character (?) a radio presenter who is washed out and fired from his job due to his grief for his son, although this wasn’t a totally believable pov, wants to help and regain some authority in his life amongst his grief. Overall, I liked him he was a genuine character who did try to do best by people, showed generational differences but wasn’t scared by them and embraced them. I thought the side characters lacked depth and became very one dimensional for me, particularly the Scottish young female who in the audiobook was not voiced great. I wish that the POV had been shortened to just the presenter or some of the time in the massive buildup was given to the other characters. The pacing wasn’t great but it could be gripping and had an element of shock factor which was great. I just really wish that everything was spread out more either more dramatic build up.

I liked the setting of the radio station and thought this was really well played out alongside the idea of cancel culture etc. these themes were well played out and were my favourite plot points as well.

I’m not sure I was the target audience for this book and I apologise for my requesting of it as I do feel this novel will be appreciated by other people that aren’t me.

Unless you are a Jeremy vine fan and like listening to his radio voice, don’t listen to this audibly he speaks in his radio voice aka very monotone for a long time. Again great for fans.

Thanks to #netgalley for this Audio copy of #murderontheline

This is the first time I have read a Jeremy Vine book and whilst I enjoyed this book I would need to check the setting for future books before deciding to pick up another.

This book revolves around Edward Temmis a radio host who is grieving the loss of his son, Stevie who is grieving the loss of her grandmother and Kim an estate agent with an unwell husband.
This book touched on many emotional topics but did not feel too heavy as the three protagonists use humour frequently.

Within this murder mystery there is fraud, blackmail, and catfishing. Whilst this is set up up as a who dunnit I was able to guess the murderer before they did in the book, and often felt like they were playing dumb and doing daft things which is why I dropped to 4 stars.

Luckily for me I grew up in the books setting and so often found the specific locations in Devon reminded me of the past rather than overly detailed like some readers.

Thanks to HarperCollins UK and Netgalley for the Audiobook ARC.

"Murder on Line One" by Jeremy Vine, which the author himself narrated, is selling a promise of a great story that every reader looks for. Unfortunately, I bought this promise, and my excitement quickly turned into disappointment for several reasons.
First, let’s talk about the plot. The story revolves around Edward Temmis, a recently sacked radio host, who becomes embroiled in a murder investigation. While the foundation of the story seemed intriguing, the execution left much to be desired. To my dismay, I found the perpetrator quite obvious early on, which stripped the story of its potential drama and suspense. What could have been a thrilling ride turned into a rather predictable tale.
Moreover, Vine's writing seemed to lack depth and the skill that truly great authors bring to creating vivid characters and engaging dialogue. Some parts felt forced or just plain far-fetched, making it difficult to stay invested in the outcome.
As for Vine's performance as a narrator, it was a significant letdown for me. Given that he has experience in radio, I expected a more polished delivery, but instead, I found it to be breathy and monotonous. His pacing was inconsistent—pausing awkwardly in places where it felt unnatural and rushing through others, often ignoring punctuation altogether. This made for a frustrating listening experience. I found myself zoning out, struggling to stay engaged with the story.
The irony is that I usually appreciate when authors narrate their own audiobooks, as it often brings a unique perspective. However, in this case, Vine's delivery felt more like a chore than an immersive experience. The monotony in his voice made it painful to listen to, and it further detracted from the enjoyment of the story itself.
Overall, I had high hopes for "Murder on Line One," but it ultimately fell short in both writing and narration. My experience was far from enjoyable.

I’m not sure why so many tv and radio ‘personalities’ are turning to writing books. There’s a plethora of titles and Jeremy Vine has added to the cadre with Murder on Line one. The setting is one with which he’s familiar as a radio presenter and involves a scam targeting old ladies. It’s a dark cosy crime and much as I wanted to enjoy it, I didn’t. Quite a few reasons. The premise is simple but the plotting is poor. The perp was obvious early on so the story lost much of its potential drama, I found the narrative style contrived with too many smilies to fill things out and the style rather childish, it takes great skill to write descriptively and create an image if an individual and I don’t think Mr Vine has that natural skill. Much of the story felt contrived and far fetched and I didn’t buy into it. But worst of all is his delivery as narrator. I don’t know if it’s down to cost or author arrogance, but not all writers are good narrators. Vine has a breathy delivery style on radio and it’s much the same with this story. He pauses and rushes in the wrong places, seems to ignore punctuation and I found his narration awful. It’s been a struggle to listen to this and I won’t be looking for any more. High hopes were quickly disappointed.

Unfortunately, I wasn't too keen on this one. The plot was rather far-fetched and unrealistic, the characters lacked depth, and there were far too many rather 'clunky' examples of figurative language.

I found the narrative rather difficult to listen too, with Vine sometimes punctuation after every word, then randomly spreeding up again. I felt this unpredictable pace really limited any sense of tension and suspense.

Overall, this was disappointing.

It's apparently now compulsory for every celebrity to write a 'cosy crime' novel, so here is Jeremy's Vine offering. The popular TV and radio presenter sticks to what he knows with a central character who is a former local radio chat show host, who discovers a cruel conman has been targeting his show's key demographic - elderly, often lonely people. In fact, the person who brings this to his attention - the feisty adult granddaughter of one of the victims - believes the scammer may have gone as far as murder in her granny's case. So Jeremy - sorry, Edward, as Vine calls his character - starts to investigate and soon finds a much larger and more serious operation than he'd ever imagined.

It's surprisingly dark for a cosy crime novel by a celebrity generally associated with light hearted, jovial programming. Edward is at a low point in his life having lost his job and reeling from them aftermath of a horrible tragedy. There's a certain menace underlying the story that you don't often find in this style of mystery. Edward is a really likeable character, and there are some good supporting characters too. Vine writes action very well and some of the best parts are his descriptions of the more dramatic moments.

Unfortunately, the most critical aspect of any crime novel (cosy or otherwise) is the plot - and Vine's villain is so blindingly obvious I spent most of the novel getting increasingly irritated that the characters were so utterly incapable of seeing it. It's generally considered that the reader should always be slightly behind the sleuth in a novel, but in this case I wasn't just ahead, I'd lapped him several times over. I usually get a sense of satisfaction when I guess a culprit correctly but that was completely wiped out here as I felt it was too easy, and too annoying that so many massive clues were overlooked by the characters.

The underlying idea for the mystery and the scam is quite a clever one (although not Vine's own, as he readily says in the acknowledgements). But the plot is ludicrous (even for this genre) and so many elements just don't ring true, even things that it wasn't necessary to stretch belief over. In places it even felt slightly surreal, to the extent I wondered if it would all turn out to be some sort of hallucination or dream by the traumatised Edward (now that would have been an interesting twist...). For example, the tsunami in Sidmouth. I could go on but that gives a pretty good flavour of what I mean, without getting into spoiler territory.

The story is easy to follow as an audiobook, and Vine's writing style is clear and accessible although full of awful similes and an irritating fixation on the eyes and skin of the female characters. I'm pretty certain he described someone's eyes as deep blue pools at one point. The narration on the audiobook is by Vine himself, and his idiosyncratic speaking style will be familiar to many people in the UK at least. I find his unevenly paced delivery annoying, not helped by the number of times I've heard it imitated on various impressions shows, but I guess most people must like it given how popular he is. I could have lived with that better if I hadn't also been so irritated by the plot.

If you love cosy crime you might enjoy this, depending on how you feel about plots and whether you like it to be easy or hard to work out 'whodunnit' for yourself. If you like your plots challenging and vaguely plausible, you might do better to steer clear and choose one of the huge number of other offerings in the genre. And that's the problem - whilst this book isn't terrible and there are aspects that are good, in such a crowded genre even the most dedicated fans only ever need read really good books. Which, sorry Jeremy, this one isn't.

You should've seen the gushy draft opening I wrote for this review before properly beginning this ARC that I was so excited to receive.

Even at 88%, I was going to say that the solid character-work made up for the relatively obvious puzzle solution. The culprit was so obvious to me at 70% that I thought it must be a red herring. Not only was it not a red herring but our sleuths believed the fall-guy was guilty for 3 months until a flash of divine inspiration, 3 months in which the culprit remained a fixture of the sleuths' landscape.

However, what eradicated my goodwill towards this book is that, after crafting wonderfully complex heroes and a nuanced secondary villain, Vine entirely cops out on the culprit's motive. Worse yet, for me, it's exactly the same cop-out motive as the Charity Shop Detective Agency. Now, I hated Boland's characters, so there I was in sympathy with the killer. Here, it feels like Vine should have committed to the culprit being a psychopath or monomaniac but, instead, we get this paper-thin justification that the characters treat as rock-solid.

I was inclined to continue with the series as and when because I like the characters and there's decent representation of disability due to the vagaries of life, rather than born that way. However, I really don't buy where the character relationships leave off and the disability representation is repetitive and shallow.

*~*

By the way, with regard to landscape, Vine is trying very hard to check off places you've heard of: Sidmouth, Topsham, Exmoor, Exeter and even a tor on the edge of Dartmoor. But it feels like a tourist's checklist of Devon, there's no sense of affection for these places. For example, why do the characters go to a fictional Indian restaurant in Budleigh Salterton (last home of Hilary Mantel, which isn't mentioned), when there's a perfectly good Indian restaurant in Sidmouth (I've eaten there)? The only thing we're told about this Indian restaurant is that the car park is superior to the food, so why did the characters leave the town they all live in to meet there, except it lets him tick off another recognisable Devon place name?

I haven't lived in Devon since I graduated from Exeter University almost 12 years ago and have only visited Sidmouth twice for the week-long folk festival and I've got more anecdotes about these locations than characters who have lived there all their lives.

When Edward Temmis suffers a terrible tragedy he’s unable to cope and looses his local radio late night radio show on when he’s let go. Working to make ends meet and trying to find a purpose in life he starts working in a garden centre. He meets Stevie, her grandmother was an avid listener to his show, she tells him how she believes her grandmother was murdered and she needs his help. With a renewed sense of purpose Edward sets about trying to solve the case and inadvertently falls in love along the way.

Although not so much a who done it (worked that out pretty early on) as a why done it. I liked the familiar settings in Devon that I could relate to. An easy read of a book that was entertaining although not so much of a surprise.

Unfortunately I didn't love this one, really struggled to get into. Normally I like when the author narrates the book but not this time it was very monotonous and dull. I found myself loosing interest very early on and had to speed it up to even get through it. Wasn't for me but some love it. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for this audio arc in return for my honest review.

Unfortunately, this was a DNF for me. I could not get along with Vine as the narrator and found it quite monotonous. I may give the print version a try in the future. Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers.

Well, well, well - Jeremy Vine is good at this.
So often I have been disappointed by television personalities jumping on the novel writing bandwagon but it was pleasing to discover Vine is a competent writer.
Edward is already reeling from grief when he losses his job as a radio host. In the midst of this he discovers that one of his elderly radio fans, Rebecca , has passed away in a house fire.
Helped by his friend Kim and Rebecca's granddaughter Stevie, he find himself investigating the mysterious circumstances around the death.
Vine's craftmanship is good in a number of ways:
. The characters are very wall drawn. Rather than just telling us who they are, the author shows us
through their actions and interactions.
. The relationships between the characters is endearing and realistic.
. There are some very funny moments which balances the quite bleak underlying circumstances.
. The mystery itself is quite well executed. It is as plausible as the mysteries in this genre ever are.
A couple of minor criticisms:
. Vine likes a tired simile and metaphor. Particularly irksome is the torrent of them at the beginning of the book .
. The description of one minor character is like something out of a MIlls and Boons romance. i hope this was tongue in cheek.
. The book has all that is required of a cozy mystery. however vine also investigates some very heavy themes, most notably grief. I quite liked this but I fear that many readers are looking for one style or the other.
The audio was a bit slow and drawling. I solved this by playing it at 1.5 which improved the pace.

A book for anyone who wants a character driven cozy mystery with hidden depths.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK Audio | HarperCollins for the ARC in return for an honest review.

Really not for me. I found it to be too slow and drawn out, with the author trying to be funny when it really wasn’t. I was expecting something very different when I requested this. I tried both the ebook and the audiobook and neither grabbed me at all.

Can’t love them all I am afraid, and there are some rave reviews. Each to their own.

Thanks to the publisher for the chance e to read this book.

Nice little book with a narrator whose voice was obviously familiar but also east to listen to. I would recommend this audiobook.

Definitely some Thursday Murder Club vibes. Felt unnecessarily long and complex with the twists going back and forth again and again. Also an unnecessary amount of action for this type of novel. Nonetheless it did keep me interested and i had to keep going to reach the conclusion in case it twisted back again. I listened to the audiobook which was narrated by Vine who I thought did a super job and I enjoyed that aspect of it as it felt like he really embodied Tennis.

The author was also the narrator in this audiobook so you would expect a superior audiobook but this was just awful!

The monotone voice of the author/narrator was so terrible to listen to that it made it painful to the ears!

With another narrator, I may have given a higher marking to maybe a two or three but this was just dreadful as it stands now.