Booklog 39/2025: Jonathan Stroud: The Outlaws Scarlett & Browne – Scarlett & Browne #1 – Audiobook

[jacey]

Narrated by Kate Rawson

Competent outlaw Scarlett McCain is a bank robber and (when she needs to be) killer in a fragmented future England dotted with fortified cities wit a whole lot of dangerous wild nothing inbetween. Running from the scene of a successful bank robbery she finds a wrecked coach, with a whole lot of dead bodies and only one survivor, gangly Albert Browne, himself on the run from implacable hunters from the Faith Houses. It turns out that Albert is way more than he seems and Scarlett is, reluctantly, stuck with him. The reluctance gradually turns to respect throughour various adventures, and this isobviously a set-up for further adventures. This moves a bit slowly at first (despite the characters being chased through inhospitable countryside full of monsters). Kate Rawson narrated Sarah Painter’s Crow Investigations books, and while her style works well for them, it works less well for this. This might be a book better read than listened to.