Origin

This impressive audiobook grabs listeners from the opening scene and never loosens its grip. Elisabeth Rogers's confident voice takes charge and allows for complete immersion in the plot and the lives of the characters. Protagonist Lena works in a crime lab and offers far more than insight into fingerprints--her intuition about the cases she encounters adds another dimension to the story entirely. Rogers provides reasonable renditions of a variety of characters and takes care not to step on the action with an overbearing performance. Listeners intrigued by both the mystery and the forensic details of crime novels will be riveted by this well-produced audiobook. L.B.F. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

Starred review from April 9, 2007
Abu-Jaber, who dealt with Arab-American themes in her earlier novels, Crescent
and Arabian Jazz
, shows her versatility in this gripping contemporary thriller. A spike in the number of local SIDS deaths piques the interest of Lena Dawson, a fingerprint specialist at a Syracuse, N.Y., forensics lab. Is it a statistical fluke or is there a killer at work? Determined to account for the dead infants, Lena joins the investigation, which stirs tantalizing memories from her dimly recollected early childhood. Despite her fragile mental state, Lena proves capable of surprising resolve. Her relationship with her protective ex-husband, her budding romance with a detective and her quest for her own lost past add psychological depth. Abu-Jaber's lovely nuanced prose conveys the chill of an upstate New York winter as well as it does Lena's drab existence before she was drawn into the mystery of the crib deaths. This enthralling puzzle will appeal to both crime fans and readers of literary fiction. 9-city author tour.