Slipping Into Darkness

Though he's not the most versatile reader, Michael Kramer has a knack for replicating certain types. He's near perfect when he portrays hard-boiled Homicide Detective Francis Laughlin. As a young cop, Laughlin coerced a murder confession from a 17-year-old suspect. Twenty years later, the man is released from a life sentence in prison on a legal technicality and almost immediately another young woman dies in a manner similar to the first. You can sympathize more with the felon than the pursuing lawman. So long as Kramer mimics the cops, he's on solid ground. But when he's called upon to do a foreign accent, he's barely believable. A.L.H. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

November 14, 2005
After sifting through the secrets of suburban life in The Last Good Day
, Blauner returns with a serpentine thriller about a decades-old murder case is reopened when the killer is released from prison. Twenty years earlier, Homicide Det. Francis X. Loughlin put the grisly murder of young doctor Allison Wallis to rest with the confession of teenage Julian Vega, but now Vega has been released on a legal technicality. Vega wanders the streets of Manhattan searching for signs of his former life, and though his old and new contacts won't give him benefit of the doubt, tough litigator Debbie Aaron believes in his innocence. When the body of a female doctor is found stabbed to death in the same manner as the original case, the investigation becomes increasingly complex. DNA evidence not only confirms Vega's innocence in the current death but calls into question the nature of the original murder. Already challenged by this tough case, Loughlin struggles with a debilitating eye disease that's robbing him of his sight. Though the low-key conclusion unfurls with little fanfare, Blauner excels with the sharp characterization and surefooted plotting that fans have come to expect.