Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the third book in the now 7 part Harry Potter series and is the first book with a darker more ominous feel. Harry Potter for those buried under a hill for the last decade is a teenage wizard who when a baby was attacked by the most powerful wizard of all time Lord Voldemort, the spell back fired and Voldemort was vanquished and Harry was left with a scar on his forehead. The first two novels in the series re-introduces Harry as a 12 year old when his magical abilities start to become more apparent, the attack at his childhood killed his parents and he had been looked after by an aunt and uncle with little love so has transferred his love for his school friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Graninger. Along with the head of the wizard school Hogwarts Professor Dumbledore and Hogwarts enormous groundskeeper Hagrid he has started to accept his past and extend his magical capabilities.

The Prisoner of Azkaban starts with the beginning of Harry's third year, he is excited about returning to the school and on the train to Hogwarts meets the new defence against the dark arts tutor called Professor Lupin. Lupin saves Harry from the fell attack by a dementor, the dementors are the guards of the wizard prison Azkaban and have become enraged with the escape of one of Voldemorts main supporters the evil killer Sirius Black. Lupin appears unlike the previous tutors of the dark arts to be one with an excellent grasp on the magic and soon befriends Harry, Ron and Hermione, he comes across well when compared with Professor Snapes hostility. Snape took an active dislike for Harry as soon as he arrived at Hogwarts two years earlier.

The Prisoner of Azkaban is slightly longer than the first two novels and takes 18 CD's for Stephen Fry to narrate the novel. Stephen Fry has been described as a national treasure and his range of accents and vocal capabilities have made him a natural for audiobooks. He has narrated all the Harry Potter books and gives the charactes distinct and constant accents all the way through the audiobooks. So in this audiobook he gives Lupin a slightly down to earth shabby gentile accent and the dementors are given hissing fleeting voices. He re-creates the accents for Hagrid, Snape etc but has made Harry and the children a more adult timber to their accents as befitting three foreteen year olds.

This is my favourite JK Rowling novel and it is a prefect adventure novel, it has noble teachers, dark and scary dementors and a satisfying conclusion. There is also a sense of the story of Harry and the others moving forward compared with the rather light first two novels in the series. Listening to Stephen Fry's narration gives a fresh insight into the events and action in the book, an audiobook doesn't give the listener a chance to speed read or skip certain sections so the listener has to follow the plot whatever happens next. I've got to say that even though I loved the book, the audiobook version is infinitely better and has been listened to more than once. The listening time is around 20 hours and comes as CD's, cassettes or can be downloaded as an mp3 file.