A very fun story made better by excellent narration! Because the story was told rom Rhys's point of view, Kai Owen was essentially playing himself, and he was clearly having a lot of fun with it. The story was a solid Torchwood story about, you guessed it, an alien invasion, but this one is stymied by Rhys with assistance from the Torchwood crew. No spoilers needed, just go listen to this story. ( )

2 CD Torchwood story written for audio, and set between second and third series. It's read by actor Kai Owen, for the very good reason that it's a first person narrative from one Rhys Williams, haulage manager. What we get is not just "actor reads book", but "actor in character tells us a story about what happened when he got mixed up in an alien invasion last week".

Rhys has a problem in the form of missing fridges, which to begin with looks like perfectly ordinary pilfering. But as Rhys looks into it, the mystery starts acquiring enough weirdness round the edges to make him think it could be Torchwood territory. Pity Torchwood's having a really bad day, and he can't even get advice about how to investigate his own little problem, never mind actual assistance. Rhys turns private investigator, and finds himself couriering packages that were delivered to Cardiff railway station - after midnight, on a long disused platform. It turns out that there's a Torchwood interest after all, but Torchwood proper is missing or dead, and only Rhys is in a position to put things back the way they should be.

The story's very entertaining, with a perfectly balanced blend of humour and horror, and a lot of running gags that turn out to be plot elements as well. Those plot elements are part of a carefully constructed story where various small details which have been layered in become important as the story gradually unfolds. And it's wonderfully read by Kai Owen. But along with all this, we get some lovely pieces of characterisation. The story revolves around Rhys, but we also see Rhys's view of Gwen and her job, and Ianto and Jack. A great story with plenty of re-listen potential. This entertaining audiobook easily justifies its cover price. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1690206.html

One of the two Torchwood audio books just released, both I think by Goss (who I find a tremendously impressive writer) and read by Kai "Rhys Williams" Owen, set in the gap between Torchwood series 2 and 3. Ghost Train is told as a first person narrative by Rhys, who gets sucked into a peculiar alien invasion with added time travel paradoxes, and ends up pilfering from himself. It's slightly retconning to put Rhys, whose great virtue in the TV show was that he was a lightning rod to normality, as the central character in a tale of the creepy unknown, but the story is a brilliant mixture of humour and horror, and Owen is a great reader - his Jack is a little too drawly, but of course he is playing Rhys doing Jack rather than being Jack himself. ( )