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Move over John Grisham
REVIEWS BY SUKEY HOWARD
By Michael Connelly Time Warner Audiobooks, $46.98 11.5 hours unabridged, CD ISBN 1594830886
Grey, a university student with a troubled past, is as odd as her name, but hardly as colorless. She is obsessed with documenting a particularly horrifying event in the totally horrifying 1937 Nanking Massacre, and travels to Tokyo to find a Chinese professor teaching there who may have actual film of the incident. As Mo Hayder's brilliantly conceived literary thriller The Devil of Nanking unfolds, you'll find yourself with Grey in a smoke-filled, current-day Tokyo "hostess club" frequented by powerful businessmen and an even more powerful gangster with his own bizarre obsession, and, alternatively, with the professor and his pregnant wife in Nanking as the barbarous Japanese army invades. The mood is haunting as one obsession intertwines with another; the characters, both good and evil, well drawn; the plot complex, controlled, chilling and utterly compelling. Brilliantly performed by Josephine Bailey and Simon Vance.
By Mo Hayder Tantor, $34.99 12.5 hours unabridged, CD ISBN 140010162X
One of the few certain things in this uncertain world is that a new novel by P.D. James will satisfy any cravings you may have for a classic, elegantly executed murder mystery. The Lighthouse, the latest in James' Adam Dalgliesh series, stars the commanding Commander, but gives his protégé, Detective Inspector Kate Miskin, and handsome, Oxford-educated Sgt. Benton-Smith more play than usual. A famous writer has been found hanging from the lighthouse on Combe Island, a privately owned, totally secure refuge where the important and powerful come to shed their stress. When suicide is ruled out, everyone on the island becomes a suspect, their every secret a possible motive. Clever, baffling—I think you'll have a hard time fingering the killer and will welcome Dalgliesh's "ah-ha" moment, when all the pieces of the puzzle "whirling wildly about his head" fall into place. Charles Keating's intelligent, perfectly nuanced performance echoes Ms. James' matchless mastery of her craft.
By P.D. James Random House Audio, $44.95 12.5 hours unabridged, CD ISBN 0739323334
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Expanding his range, Michael Connelly has entered the legal thriller-diller arena with a winner. The Lincoln Lawyer, effectively read here by Adam Grupper, introduces listeners to Mickey Haller, an appealingly flawed, super-cynical lawyer to the lowlifes. He operates out of the backseat of his Lincoln Town Car, taking on anyone who has the bucks to pay. Mickey's not concerned with innocence or guilt—for him, it's a business and a mind game. So, when a wealthy Beverly Hills playboy accused of brutally attacking a woman asks Mickey to defend him, all our crafty counselor sees is a "franchise," a client who wants to go to trial and will pay the highest rates to do it. What Mickey will regret is what he didn't see: deceit, manipulation that rivals his own and a face-to-face encounter with evil. As Mickey wheels and deals, we get the equivalent of Defense Law 101, an eye-opening look at how the criminal justice system really works.
Obsession
Murder will out