Look, I need to start with a complaint because that description is WRONG. The metadata says this is Aesop's Fables Volume 12. It is not. It is a novel about a gentleman burglar named Anthony Trent who robs rich people while maintaining a respectable cover as a short story writer. I nearly choked on my 6 AM scrambled eggs reading that description before I started listening. Someone copy-pasted the wrong thing and nobody caught it. This is why we check our charting twice, people.
Now that I've gotten that out of my system.
A Criminal Who'd Make a Decent Night Shift Nurse
Anthony Trent is basically the guy who's too smart for his day job, so he starts moonlighting as a burglar. He's a struggling fiction writer in New York who realizes he can make better money cracking safes than crafting sentences. And honestly? The way Wyndham Martyn writes him - methodical, patient, studying his targets before he moves - he reminds me of the best charge nurses I've worked with. The ones who don't panic. Who read a situation three steps ahead. Trent cases a mansion the way I triage a trauma bay. Calm assessment, then precise action.
The book is from 1921 and it reads like it. That's not entirely a knock - there's something charming about the pacing, the way Martyn takes his time setting scenes in early 20th century New York high society. But it's slow. Really slow in places. I listened to the first couple hours on my drive home after a brutal shift where we had three codes back to back, and honestly the genteel robbery planning was kind of exactly what I needed. Low stakes compared to my night. Nobody's bleeding out. The worst that happens is someone loses their pearls.
But I'll be honest - by hour five, during a rare quiet stretch on the unit where I was catching up on charting, I realized I'd zoned out for a solid twenty minutes and hadn't missed much. Trent was still planning. Still being clever. The plot doesn't so much build tension as it... strolls toward it.
Anna Simon and the LibriVox Question
This is a LibriVox recording, which means it's free, which means it's volunteer-narrated, which means you calibrate your expectations accordingly. Anna Simon is fine. She reads clearly, her pacing is steady, and she doesn't stumble over Martyn's occasionally elaborate sentences. But there's a flatness to it - the kind of narration that delivers the words without quite selling the drama. Trent is supposed to be charming and dangerous. Simon reads him as... pleasant. When he's in a tight spot, breaking into a society matron's safe with someone approaching the door, I wanted my heart rate to tick up. It didn't. The tension lives in Martyn's plotting but not in the delivery.
No sound effects, no music, no production frills. Just a woman reading a book into a microphone. And for free? That's fair. But compared to a professional Audible production, it's like comparing hospital cafeteria coffee to the espresso Carlos brings me when he picks me up after a double. Both are technically coffee.
Who Actually Wants This
If you're into early 20th century crime fiction - the Raffles type, the gentleman thief genre - this is a solid entry. Martyn clearly knew his New York society settings, and there's a fun class commentary running underneath Trent's exploits. He robs people who won't miss the money and who probably deserve worse. There's a war subplot that comes in later - Trent ends up serving in WWI, which actually gives the character some depth I wasn't expecting.
But if you need your thrillers to actually thrill? If you want twists that hit like a crash cart? This isn't it. Now Housekeeper: A Twisted Psychological Thriller? That one actually got my heart rate up the way a good code blue does - the kind of tension Trent's story keeps promising but never quite delivers. It's a product of its time - methodical where modern readers want momentum.
I didn't yell at my dashboard once, which for a mystery is either a compliment or a sign that nothing got my blood pressure up enough to bother. By Order of the President at least got a couple of good yells out of me, which honestly felt more satisfying.
Night Shift Prescription
Free audiobook, decent narration, century-old gentleman thief story that's more interesting as a historical curiosity than as a page-turner. I'd recommend it for completists and vintage crime fans. For everyone else - there are better ways to spend eight hours. I should know. I spend twelve of them keeping people alive, and I'm pickier about how I spend the other twelve.
Carlos asked me what I was listening to. I said "a book about a burglar from 1921." He said "is it good?" I said "it's... educational." He went back to sleep. Fair.
