Reviews of The Price of Dormice
[see also reviews on Goodreads]
Emma Ashley
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant book
This was such a good book. I couldn't put it down and I was hooked from the very first page. The author's writing is brilliant and twisty and hooks you in and doesn't let you go until the end. I loved the characters in the book and the pacing was just right. Overall, a brilliantly written novel that I highly recommend to other readers. I look forward to reading more by the author.
Robyn
4.0 out of 5 stars 4 stars !
I’ve recently started to grow a love for crime and thrillers at the moment and this just added to this.
We begin with Mick facing a near death experience at the hands of Conrad after his wife informs him she would like a divorce and everything develops further.
When a fire breaks out, mick is faced with being accused of the prime suspect.
I loved the friendships faced within this book and how this book tackles real life problems.
P.s this cover has to be one of my favourites I’ve seen.
Kaz W (kaz_loves_books9)
5.0 out of 5 stars The Price Of Dormice - A very good read
This was a great stalker read which I really enjoyed and it just drew me in from the start and I couldn’t put it down. It was a great read. Mick had been out for a walk with his dog one morning and when he got back he fancied grapefruit for breakfast so went to the shop. He stood at the pedestrian crossing, a bus was stuck at the roundabout due to some vans parked incorrectly. Then he noticed a car careering down the hill towards him, aiming straight at him and he only just managed to jump out the way. The driver hit the bus and got out of the car, then had words with him. He didn’t know the guy, he didn’t know the woman in the car but the man was accusing him of having been with his wife. The guy then started thumping him. The police arrived and took the guy away while the wife and children said they would take him home and sort his wounds. Whilst there, she apologised for her husband’s behaviour and explained that coming down the hill she had told her husband she was seeing someone in the village. She went off in her cab and he realised he actually liked her. After that, they kept bumping into each other but Mick was receiving death threats. A most fantastic read, well written and planned out. I liked Mick’s character. He seemed so laid back and took to the stalking really well, even if his painter’s outfit didn’t fool anyone. Then of course, they had to save the dormice!
David Brockway
4.0 out of 5 stars Great suspense with a good dose of humour
@fatguyreading
First of all, let's talk about the cover.
It's got a great autumnal feel with orange tones and leaves. The sleepy dormouse is just so cute and attracts the eye brilliantly.
Now onto the story. Here we have an intelligent, suspense thriller, with a dose or two of great humour. Without giving too much away, our main character, Mick, is accused of murder after a local chief planner in Oxford, and his wife, die in an arson attack, so Mick must resort to blackmail and underhanded tactics to prove his innocence.
So all in all, I enjoyed this read. It's clever, with a theme of determination against all the odds, and a storyline that's well paced and entertaining.
I read this in three sittings.
Barbara N
5.0 out of 5 stars A great tale well told
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 November 2024I loved this book. A great tale which rolled along very well. Full of surprises and suspense. Very funny at times and great messages of the importance of working together for the best outcomes. In these times of big business and powerful organisations it's easy to feel powerless and overwhelmed but this book offers hope ...power to the people!
SGL
5.0 out of 5 stars A Beautiful Story!
Reviewed in the United States on 11 November 2024
Informed, intelligent, and expertly plotted. This is a well-crafted and enormously readable delight. Hard to put down. More please!
Female First
An entertaining, comedic-crime novel set in Oxford following ‘ordinary’ Mick and his peers in their quest to protect a nature reserve from destruction
A clever and believable novel, laced with a touch of lightheartedness. Set amid tragedy, threats, and accusations the heroes attempt to prove their innocence with the threats ramping up romance blossoms. This is a thoroughly clever and embracing read. Female First, 20 October 2024
fiction vixen18
I don't think anything I say about this book will do it justice, it was unbelievably good.
The book was well written with a compelling and hilarious at times story line and well developed characters that I think I will think about for a long time. I loved this group that came together in the name of justice, nature, doing the right thing and Dormice. It reminded me in many ways of the Thursday Murder Club especially with the characters and you know how much I love that series and those characters.
The characters were so relatable because we see it all the time, the powerful elite thinking that people are beneath them and they can do whatever they want with no repercussions, as I was reading it it was so thought provoking as to how many of us would do something similar if given the chance🙋♀️🙋♀️🙋♀️
The pacing of the book was perfect and I was absolutely gripped right from the first sentence. I couldn't put it down and the twists just kept coming and at some points had me on the edge of my seat. There is so much more that I could say about this book but you know spoilers, so please read it and then talk to me about it.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
stratospherekawaiigirl Kim
This is a crime drama with an eco twist that has an underlying theme of justice.
Told across multiple POVs this story unfolds as Mick is unwittingly pulled into the lives of Conrad and Kimberly when she makes an offhanded remark.
Drama ensues as Conrad becomes threatening to Mick which puts Mick in the line of fire when Conrad and Kimberly turn up dead. While this part of the story is unfolding a nature reserve is in danger of being destroyed along with its tiny furry inhabitants. Mick along with the other characters we meet make it their mission to save the day. These characters are a fun group to get behind…after all, they are nature and animal allies.
This story could be busy at times and the plot a bit heavy with details but I really enjoyed this book and thought it was a great debut from Lunn.
Francis Hamel, artist
One of those rare books you don't want to finish.
Prof Mike Collier, artist, educator and collaborator extraordinaire
I’ve just finished The Price of Dormice. It’s brilliant. I couldn’t put it down in the end! Wow - it’s so clever, complex and smart. And keeps you on tenterhooks right to the end. It’s a fantastic achievement and the best novel I’ve read in a very long time.
Review of The Price of Dormice by Prof Riki Therivel, published in The Sprout and Flying Goose
Mick Jarvis lives in Wolvercote with his dog Friday. One day, walking Friday, Mick is nearly hit by a large car which then slams into a bus. The car’s driver is large, unpleasant and threatening, but his wife and children are charming. Mick finds out the driver’s name a few days later when asked to fill in a witness statement, and starts looking into the odious Conrad Sefton-Shaw’s activities. He quickly finds out that Conrad is Director of Sustainable Development at Oxford City Council, has friends in high places, and is up to no good.
So starts Steve Lunn’s thoroughly enjoyable The Price of Dormice. The book follows the progress of Mick and his ramshackle group of friends in trying to piece together what Conrad, his lawyer and the University of Oxford are trying to do, namely get in early on developing the Oxford-Cambridge Arc. The Arc was a real-life threat under Boris Johnson’s government and has still not fully gone away: a plan to build 1 million homes between Oxford and Cambridge to form a UK-style silicon valley.
In The Price of Dormice, these dastardly forces are opposed by farmers Linda and Tom, wildlife officer Andrea, Mick’s high tech wizard friend Kanhai, and the elusive, on-again-off-again Naomi. The six dormice around which all of the action swirls never do show their furry little faces, but represent the many small, beautiful things that would be lost under large-scale development.
In a book that combines comedy and crime, it must be hard not to caricaturise its actors. Here, some of the goodies are mutually supportive spliff-lovers, but they turn out to have hearts of steel. The cops are good, bad, and not-very-sure-yet. The children are cute but dangerous. The baddies are dons, developers, and officials, all out to line their pockets. If the book does stray into caricature, it doesn't mean that the caricatures aren’t often correct.
What I really enjoyed about the book are its many references to Oxford: not the grandiose city centre that acts as the backdrop for so many other books, but Botley, Cumnor, Wolvercote, Hinksey Hill, Boars Hill, Wytham Woods, the motorcycle café on the way down to Dorchester. The book also has an important core message. From the mouth of our hero Mick:
“then I had one of those shifts in perspective that is irreversible once it’s happened. I was looking down on my life as a diligent and hard-working journey… A life of conforming to expectations and avoiding confrontation… And now Naomi and Andrea were showing me it was possible to do something positive together, rather than just accept and accommodate wrongs in isolation. We all know the word ‘activism’. Now I knew what it meant.”
The Price of Dormice is Steve Lunn’s first novel. It is just (28 October) published and is, in its author’s words, “available in all good bookshops” for £9.99.