The Woman in White

Wilkie Collins's intricate nineteenth-century mystery offers a tantalizing script for audio. What appears to be a standard marriage arrangement entangles an unfortunate aristocratic woman in a web of deceit. The story is arranged as a series of eyewitness accounts, and several British actors portray the diverse cast of characters. Only one person narrates at a time, and each introduction of a new narrator elicits more details of the villainous conspiracy and the role of the haunting woman in white. Glen McCready gives an especially compelling reading as the heroic Walter Hartright; he adds intensity to his segments through his colorful vocal characterizations and energetic delivery. Combining a convincing cast, gripping dialogue, and a fast-paced plot, this audiobook delivers a captivating experience from start to finish. T.D.M. (c) AudioFile 2008, 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