I begin with apologies. This is my late audio blog tour stop for Smokeheads by Doug Johnstone. Thanks to Ulverscroft for my tour invitation and the copy of the audiobook to give you my honest thoughts.
Driven by amateur whisky-nut Adam, four late-thirties ex-university mates are heading to Islay—the remote Scottish island world famous for its single malts—with a wallet full of cash, a stash of coke and a serious thirst.
Over a weekend soaked in the finest cask strength spirit, they meet young divorcee Molly, who Adam has a soft spot for, her little sister Ash who has all sorts of problems and Molly’s ex-husband Joe, a control freak who also happens to be the local police. As events spiral out of control, they are all thrown into a nightmare that gets worse at every turn.
A Doug Johnstone book is one I will never turn down the chance of reading. I listened to the audiobook version of Smokeheads. Having read his more recent releases I wasn’t sure what to expect from this story at all. I just hoped it would be as brilliant as every other book I have read by him.
Andy and his best friends go to Islay for a whisky tour. Adam has an agenda that he is keeping to himself. He is the Whisky specialist and planned everything that they are doing. His friend Roddy is a hedge fund manager, living life to his upmost, mainly living on alcohol and coke. The loner of them all is Luke, a musician and Ethan is the most ‘normal’ of them all.
As the story develops, it becomes more apparent that this is a trip that will be more than they planned and things are going array after they discover one of the secrets that the Islay Islanders have kept close to their chest. They are going so far skew-whiffed that their lives may just be in question!
Doug Johnstone has a knack of making landscapes come to life and that’s exactly what he does in this book. My heart was in my mouth with the positions they found themselves in.
Angus King is a perfect narrator for Smokeheads. The telling of the story was so smoothly done. I wasn’t jarred out of this whisky trip for the lads once. I listened to this constantly. On the shopping run, while I was cleaning in fact every spare minute. This is my first Doug Johnstone audiobook. I am now thinking of buying his others on audio too. A brilliant addition to my Doug Johnstone collection.
sharonbeyondthebooks.uk 