The Woman in White

Wilkie Collins's novel, like many British mysteries that succeeded it, unfolds slowly as listeners get to know the various characters who play a part in the story. This involved tale of greed, subterfuge, disappointed love, and stoic loyalty is told from several points of view. Ian Holm renders each remarkably well--not by assuming different identities or by contorting his voice in any way, but by altering pace and pitch subtly and effectively to give each of the narrative voices a distinct personality: the hypochondriac uncle, the stalwart suitor, the strong-willed sister, the hedonistic Italian count, the smarmy aristocrat. The slow pace of this novel does not detract in the least from its absorbing story. L.X.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Starred review from February 28, 2011
Josephine Bailey and Simon Prebble turn in stellar performances of Collins's classic, commonly regarded as the world's first mystery novel. Late one night, on the way to his new post, art teacher Walter Hartright encounters a ghostly woman dressed all in white, tending to a grave. The next day, he meets his new pupils, Laura Fairlie and her half-sister, Marian, and discovers that the sisters have mysterious ties to the woman in white. For a story told by a sequence of first-person narrators, Bailey and Prebble provide well-paced, alternating readings: Prebble's Hartright is steady, even-keeled, and sensitive; his Marian is bright and clear and blunt. Bailey's Laura is equally well rendered: kind and young, sad and sweet. The voices both narrators provide the host of other characters—including the hot-tempered Sir Percival Glyde and the devious Count Fosco—are attended with equal imagination and skill. A must-listen for mystery lovers.

Hugely popular in its time, Collins's mystery-suspense novel is now largely forgotten. Its decline has been due partly to an extravagantly intricate plot (one improved by abridgment) and partly to an equally convoluted structure. The story is told through the accounts of several characters in succession. Because the accounts contain dialogue, listeners are treated to the unusual spectacle of hearing every character filtered through each of the others. Such complexity would have overwhelmed anything less than virtuoso performances. Fortunately, both Nigel Anthony and Susan Jameson rise to the occasion. Listeners will be excused in mistaking this for a full-cast dramatization, so expertly distinguished is the multitude of voices within voices. S.J.L. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine