Audiobook Review – The Diamond Conspiracy (Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, Book 4) by Pip Ballantine, Tee Morris, Narrated by James Langton (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Steampunk
Length: 12 hours and 45 minutes (368 pages)
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Release Date: March 31, 2015
ASIN: B00V75S5LS
Stand Alone or Series: 4th book in the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 4/5 stars

“Having narrowly escaped the electrifying machinations of Thomas Edison, Books and Braun are looking forward to a relaxing and possibly romantic voyage home. But when Braun’s emergency signal goes off, all thoughts of recreation vanish. Braun’s street-wise team of child informants, the Ministry Seven, is in grave peril, and Books and Braun must return to England immediately.

But when the intrepid agents finally arrive in London, the situation is even more dire than they imagined. The Ministry has been disavowed, and the Department of Imperial Inconveniences has been called in to decommission its agents in a most deadly fashion. The plan reeks of the Maestro’s dastardly scheming. Only, this time, he has a dangerous new ally—a duplicitous doctor whose pernicious poisons have infected the highest levels of society, reaching even the Queen herself…”

This is the fourth book in the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series and it was a good addition to this series.

I listened to this on audiobook and the audiobook for this series have been very well done. Langton does an amazing job at narrating these and his narration is part of what makes this series so fun.

I still enjoy our main characters of Books and Braun quite a bit. I was a bit frustrated that we didn’t spend as much time with them in this book as we did in previous books. This book jumps around between different points of view quite a bit more than previous books and the side characters aren’t nearly as well done or interesting as Books and Braun.

I also had some issues with knowing when the story was switching viewpoints, this may have been an audiobook issue. I would be listening to the story and then realize new characters were talking and we must have switched viewpoints. It always took me a bit to realize that I was listening about a different part of the story.

Overall this was a good addition to this series, but not my favorite book in the series. I enjoy the world and some of the characters (Books and Braun). I would have liked less page space with the other side characters….or maybe it would have been okay if the side characters had been developed a bit better. The story is well done. I would recommend this to steampunk fans.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Goodreads Reading Challenge