The Wycherly Woman

THE WYCHERLY WOMAN is a classic noir puzzle, and Grover Gardner is ideal as the iconic Lew Archer, Bay Area gumshoe of the hard-boiled kind. Almost nothing is as it seems when Lew is hired by Homer Wycherly to find his college-age daughter, who has disappeared following her ill-matched parents' messy divorce. Gardner gives distinctive voice to each of Macdonald's many hussies, blackmailers, wackos, and minor characters with colorful quirks by using subtle shifts of pitch and timbre, so you always know who is speaking. The genre is dated, and the MacGuffin is strictly unbelievable, but you won't care; Gardner keeps it tense, dramatic, and thoroughly entertaining, his performance a perfect match for Macdonald's pace and style. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine