Triptych

Will Trent, from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, is assigned to help local detectives on a case involving a serial killer who cuts the tongues out of his victims. Trent finds himself working with a reluctant veteran detective, Michael Ormewood, and Vice-Cop Angie Polaski, whom Trent is in love with and has known since childhood. Michael Kramer narrates this gritty novel in a deep, gravelly voice, turning in a sensitive performance with an impressive ability to portray each of the well-developed characters. His character voices are convincing, and he wisely does not overdo the accents, in particular the regional southern ones that are so tempting to exaggerate. Thanks in no small part to Kramer, the tension is palpable as the investigation closes in on the killer. S.S.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

June 12, 2006
Bestseller Slaughter departs from her Grant County crime series (Faithless
, etc.) with a stand-alone thriller notable mainly for a jolting mid-book twist similar to one Ira Levin used with more subtlety in A Kiss Before Dying
. The case of a prostitute's brutal murder provides a welcome break for Michael Ormewood, a cynical, world-weary Atlanta cop weighed down by dealing with the city's underclass and the heartbreak of a mentally impaired son. Since the victim's tongue was severed, linking the crime to several other recent outrages, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation intervenes. Suspicions focus on a recently paroled sex offender, John Shelley, who viciously butchered a neighbor more than a decade earlier. Slaughter unexpectedly switches the narrative's perspective, but the shock value garnered by the plot twist isn't matched by the predictable denouement.