You Bet Your Life

In this "Toby Peters" mystery, the cast of characters includes the Chicago Mob, the Marx Brothers, and Ian Fleming, and a plot in which Chico Marx is being threatened because of nonpayment of a gambling debt he did not incur. Peters, a California native, arrives in wintry Chicago wearing only a summer suit and promptly becomes ill with the flu, which he passes on to most of the characters, along with Ian Fleming's cure of drinking orange juice mixed with a raw egg, followed by an alcoholic chaser. Tom Parker's entertaining rendition includes mostly on-target voices--Peters's voice is quite convincing--with good pacing and tempo. There's plenty of humor in this highly improbable story, which Parker conveys successfully. S.S.R. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine