The End of the Road

For the first time in years, widow Maxie McNabb and her dachshund Stretch are staying home in Homer, Alaska, for the winter in this fourth installment of Sue Henry's charming series. When a tourist she befriends is found dead of an apparent suicide in his hotel room, Maxie's curiosity leads her on a quest to learn his real identity and reasons for killing himself. Lee Adams narrates in the voice of Maxie but seems strangely detached from this first-person story. We learn about life in small-town Alaska, where the winters are long and dark, and inhabitants enjoy their books and their friends in cozy dinner get-togethers. But Adams's uninteresting narration adds no life to this mystery. N.E.M. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine