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I am unabashedly attracted to medical mysteries, and Michael Palmer's Critical Judgment (BDD Audio, $22.95, 6 hours, ISBN 055347443X) read by Megan Gallagher, is as good as a double dose of ER with the added attractions of high-level intrigue, a little romance, a lot of lethal deceit, some great chase scenes, and some memorable characters.
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In Harvest (Simon & Schuster Audio, $18, 3 hours, ISBN 0671570676), Tess Gerritsen, an internist turned novelist, pits surgical resident Abby DiMatteo against an elite, but sinister team performing transplants with organs harvested from unwilling, unwitting donors -- and, if she's not very careful, Abby too may wind up under their unscrupulous scalpels. Jayne Brook performs.
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Phillip Margolin's taut, disturbing Heartstone (BDD Audio, 3 hours, $16.99, ISBN 0553474081) leads the legal line-up, affectingly read by Margaret Whitten. Distorted passion, ambition that blinds, corruption, and a tangle of lies obscure the truth about the gruesome murders of two all-American teenagers until years later. Interesting and compelling all the way through, and the finale is a real shocker.
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In Lisa Scottoline's latest, Legal Tender (HarperAudio, $18, 3 hours, ISBN 0694517372), the tables are turned on Bennie Rosato, a tall, blond, gutsy lawyer who is used to prosecuting police misconduct and abuse cases. Accused of murdering her law partner who was also her former lover, the police are now after Bennie. On the run, using her street smarts and lawyerly wile and guile, Bennie is determined to solve the case and save her own hide. Kate Burton does a great job with the fast, funny dialogue and Bennie's urban Philadelphia accent.
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Bennie's snappy style is a great segue to the one and only "Kinkster," starring in The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover (Audio Renaissance, $16.95, 3 hours, ISBN 1559274123), another irreverent escapade dreamed up by the real-life "Kinkster," Kinky Friedman, one of the very few mystery writers who can also claim fame as a country singer. Friedman-the-real narrates this wry, funny tale about Friedman-the-fictional and his twangy charm is ever evident in the words and the delivery.
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One of the good guys, and there aren't many, is a dashing investment banker, one of the bad guys is his boss, throw in some gorgeous girls, good and bad, with financial savvy, a couple of predatory presidential candidates, and a gang of international terrorists, and you have part of the cast of The Vulture Fund (Penguin Audiobooks, $16.95, 3 hours, ISBN 014086346X), a fast-paced, big-money-based thriller that entertains as it offers insight into some of Wall Street's more unseemly practices.
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In James Grippando's new sizzler, The Informant (HarperAudio, $18, 3 hours, ISBN 0694517356), a savage serial killer, whose "signature" is ripping out his victims' tongues, seems to be striking at random. The title may help the listener figure it out, but the FBI is baffled. Then a Miami Herald crime reporter begins getting tips in advance from someone who might be the murderer. A breakthrough, the scoop of a journalist's career, or the crafty killer having his own kind of fun? James Naughton reads and turns the suspense level up.
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The Monkey House by John Fullerton (Brilliance, $23.95, 9 hours, ISBN 1561007129) is a good novel that happens to be a mystery thriller, rather than vice versa, and that makes it stand out from the pack. There is a murder and the question of whodunit-and-why, but the real fascination here is in the setting, Sarajevo, and the characters: the Croat police superintendent; his declining, alcoholic Serbian wife; his Muslim goddaughter; the Bosnian gang leader she is having an affair with; and a cocky American journalist who has become something of a media superstar. Fullerton has covered the war in Bosnia himself, and the picture he paints of the bleak, beleaguered city, without
adequate water, heat, electricity, food, without respite from artillery fire, is darkly fascinating and sadly informative. J.
Charles reads this unabridged presentation.
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The endless fascination of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, mingled with nostalgia for the fading glitter of Camelot and our seemingly limitless interest in the intimate details of her life with Jack Kennedy has led to a recent rash of books about her and him and them. Edward Klein, a contributing editor of Vanity Fair, has indulged his all-too-human curiosity about the inner workings of their marriage and courtship in All Too Human: The Love Story of Jack and Jackie Kennedy (Simon & Schuster Audio, $18, 3 hours, ISBN 067157535X) and reads this audio adaptation himself. The marriage he details was not the culmination of a real romance, but, if Klein is on the mark, it became close and strong and, ultimately, a love story with a heartbreaking end. Klein knew Jackie and obviously admired her; the story he tells enhances both Jackie's allure and her dignity and makes Jack a little more understandable.
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Kathryn Walker has a mesmerizing voice, a lovely voice that lulls you into thinking that the women in the novels she narrates are in control. They're not. She did a superb job with In the Cut, and here again, performing Joan Didion's subtly complex, new novel, The Last Thing He Wanted (Random House Audiobooks, $18, 3 hours, ISBN 0679457925), she gets your attention and holds it rapt as the protagonist's life shifts its shape and purpose. Drawn into a murky world of arms deals, conspiracies, covert action, strange and strained loyalties, diplomats, spies, and politicians, Elena McMahon doesn't really understand what she's getting into. It all begins, and ends, when she leaves her job covering the 1984 election campaign for a major newspaper to stand in for her infirm father who hopes, at last, to make big bucks in a resupply shipment to the Contras. Didion is a brilliant writer, and her prose proves eloquent when read aloud.
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Sukey Howard reports on spoken word audio every month. Don't miss her audio book reviews on CNN's Sunday Morning.
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