Dark Blue Death

Austin cop Zoe Barrow has been promoted to Homicide, where her first major case involves a terrifying serial killer whose target appears to be policewomen. Zoe also needs to track down her comatose husband, who has disappeared from his nursing home. Narrator Andrea Gallo fails to rescue the stilted dialogue in this crime story. While she provides low-key portrayals of most of the players, she relinquishes the opportunity to make any of them sound Texan. Gallo's straightforward reading of the heroine's lines might be construed as steadiness in the face of crisis except that it's difficult to discern Zoe's voice from those of the other characters. Further, Gallo's consistently slow pace doesn't provide any spark for the predictable plot or the lackluster narrative. N.M.C. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine