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Best in new audio: mirth, magic, the Mafia, and more
REVIEWS BY SUKEY HOWARD
By Mario Puzo Random House AudioBooks, unabridged, $39.95 ISBN 0375415726
Abridged, $25
If there's anybody in the English speaking world that hasn't read or, better, listened to J.K. Rowling's latest Harry Potter book, they should do so immediately. Hard as it is to believe, Rowling has not only kept the phenomenon going, she's improved on it. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is bigger and even better than the previous volumes -- it's as though the author, borrowing a bit from her wisest wizards, has pointed her wand and said, "engorgio!" And voila, another installment in the battle between good and evil, with all the fabulous trappings we've come to expect -- ingenious characters, original plot, spectacular magic, playful wit, and a breathtaking climax. Jim Dale's performance of all 124 voices is, in a word, magical, and not to be missed.
By J.K. Rowling Listening Library, $39.95 ISBN 0807282588
Burials, bones, and surly Quebecois detectives are always part of Tempe Brennan's work life. Now, in Deadly Decisions, author Kathy Reichs adds danger and uncertainty as she sends her feisty forensic anthropologist into a nasty nest of rival outlaw motorcycle gangs. Called back from North Carolina to her post in Montreal, Tempe joins a task force investigating the violent deaths in a raging biker war, including an innocent a nine-year-old girl. It's a grim, grisly scene, but it really gets bad when her favorite teenage nephew yearns for a taste of motorcycle madness and her close -- sometimes very close -- friend and colleague is suspected of drug dealing. Reichs's Montreal is gritty and colorful, her forensic detail fascinating, and reader Katherine Borowitz lends to the solid authenticity by slipping in and out of a French-Canadian accent with amazing accuracy and ease.
By Kathy Reichs Simon & Schuster Audio, $25 ISBN 0743500547
Serial suspense Under Cover of Darkness, James Grippando's latest, is a real gripper from the eerie opening to the catastrophic denouement. Grippando keeps the tension, suspense, and drama turned up high, twisting two strands of plot into a nightmarish knot, while Ron McLarty's well-crafted performance keeps the audio atmosphere charged. A serial killer, whose trademark is strangling and torturing pairs of look-a-likes, is loose in Seattle. Then, Beth Wheatly, the unhappy wife of a leading lawyer in a top-drawer firm, vanishes without a trace. The FBI and local cops think there may be a connection. When they realize Beth bears an uncanny resemblance to the dead women, the link gets stronger. When they find evidence that Beth is still alive, they begin to think she might be a participant, rather than a victim. To find out, a gutsy, young agent goes undercover, entering a dangerous world where death and deceit lurk in the dark.
By James Grippando HarperAudio, $25 ISBN 0694522600
Bill Bryson, traveler and travel writer extraordinaire, has taken us along on many of his walks, tours, and jaunts and let us worldwatch with him. In a Sunburned Country, his latest bestseller about Australia, seems grander and more detailed than his previous books and that's quite fitting for a book on a vast land of improbable creatures that is, uniquely, a sovereign country, continent, and island all in one. Never one to romanticize or censure, Bryson keeps a storyteller's distance, but gets close-up and personal with people, places, and the perplexities of travel. Most captivating is his ability to incorporate interesting nuggets of history, botany, zoology, and local lore into his travelogue, whether it's Australia's astounding number of lethal critters, impenetrable political system, or rough origins as a penal colony. Also captivating is Bryson's reading of this unabridged presentation -- he's a good companion and gifted guide.
By Bill Bryson BBD Audio, $39.95 ISBN 0553502557
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Two characters live by a code of honor in Mario Puzo's Omerta -- one is a young Mafia Don, just coming into his own, the other is a seasoned FBI agent who has made Mafia-busting his life's work. They meet head-on in this last installment of Puzo's celebrated Mafia trilogy. Raised in New York and Sicily, Astorre Viola takes over his uncle's operation when the elderly Don is gunned down, but finds himself surrounded by men who no longer play by the time-honored rules, dealing big time with megalomaniac South American drug lords, and selling out their brethren to the Feds. Kurt Cilke, wholeheartedly committed to the Bureau, finds his superiors care more about politics than they do about wiping out organized crime. Puzo can really tell a story, chock-a-block with wild, larger-than-life characters, and weave a world out of words, a world where old fashioned Mafiosi, blood-stained though they are, seem bigger, braver, bolder, and more noble than anyone on the other side. Michael Imperioli, who appeared in Good Fellas and The Sopranos, reads with the right voice, inflection, and delivery in Omerta.
Harry IV
Forensic findings
Wonder down under