The Investigators

Working his way through the early chapters of W.E.B. Griffin's police procedural, Josef Sommer sounds as if he's gargling with rocks. Fortunately, Sommer gets stronger the longer he talks. His versatility remains limited--he never, for example, makes one believe that he's any of Griffin's women characters--but he has a knack for punctuating the drama of a moment, which well serves Griffin's dense prose style. While the author conjures up a world of crime and punishment that makes Dostoevsky look positively minimalist, Sommer is always there to soothingly guide us back to the essentials of character and plot. D.W. (c) AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine