Naked Cruelty

Expert pacing is the key to Charles Leggett's reading of the third Carmine Delmonico mystery, set in 1968 Holloman, Connecticut. Police captain Delmonico struggles with problems at home, a new detective trainee, a serial rapist/murderer, and the kidnapping of a foreign national. What ties these disparate threads together is Leggett's ability to draw the listener in with his accents--German and British as well as the deeper, sarcastic East Coast accents used for the Holloman detectives. Leggett builds on the action scenes with his eerily calm portrayal of the murderer. He adds to the story's tension by drawing the scenes out slowly and then increasing his pace as the climax plays out. E.N. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

November 15, 2010
Set in 1968, McCullough's uneven third Carmine Delmonico novel (after Too Many Murders) finds the Holloman, Conn., police captain facing multiple problems. On the crime front, a serial rapist calling himself Didus ineptus, the Linnaean name for the dodo bird, is increasing the violence of his attacks; a vandal strikes at a mall; incipient gang violence threatens area high schools; and the fate of a kidnapping victim strains resources. Within the department, everyone detests bright, beautiful, ambitious detective trainee Helen MacIntosh, the daughter of the president of Holloman's "world-famous institute of higher learning," Chubb University. One lieutenant, Corey Marshall, isn't working out, and another, Morty Jones, has a drinking problem. On the domestic front, Delmonico's wife, Desdemona, may be suffering from postpartum depression and is worsening by the day. The admirable Delmonico holds this character-driven novel together, but awkward plot twists and a climax more silly than shocking undermine credibility.