Flowering Judas

FLOWERING JUDAS immediately grabs listeners with narrator David Colacci's achingly painful rendition of a grieving mother whose son disappeared 12 years earlier. Unable to let go, she still posts flyers around the community in the hope of finding her son, Chester. When his body is finally discovered, hanging from a town billboard, Former FBI Agent Gregor Demarkian is called in to help local police investigate. Law enforcement is stumped because Chester was only recently killed. Where had he been for 12 years? Colacci propels the story forward with briskly paced portrayals of diverse and timely characters, such as a college instructor who is living in her car. Despite Colacci's expert performance of Haddam's realistic dialogue, some listeners may wonder what happened to the neglected plot. J.T. (c) AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine