The Ice Man

Philip Carlo's book about real-life killer Richard Kuklinski is an example of how an audiobook can be superior to its written counterpart. Michael Prichard's rich, measured performance makes the horror of the words even more potent. And though he tries hard to hide his personal reaction to the words he's reading, Prichard's visceral reactions come through. Some of the murders described by the sadistic killer are beyond imagination, the stuff of nightmares. The bonus disc, capturing Carlo's interviews of Kuklinski, is interesting. The killer talks slowly and softly, in contrast to the horrors he describes. Kuklinski is a monster who has since died in prison, yet Carlo manages to show the human side of the ice-cold killer. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

April 24, 2006
This stomach-turning account of the multiple atrocities committed over 43 years by Richard "The Ice Man" Kuklinski—as sadistic a killer as most readers would ever want to encounter in print—seems like more of an as-told-to than an independent journalistic narrative, though Carlo says that he verified Kuklinski's accounts where possible. But rather than critically assess Kuklinski's largely self-serving tales of his roles in such major mob killings as those of Jimmy Hoffa and Gambino boss Paul Castellano, Carlo (The Night Stalker
) seems to accept them. Instead of applying objective insight into how such a murderer—who researched methods that would prolong his victims' suffering—came to be, the author presents instead chapter after chapter of Kuklinski summarily killing criminals he was hired to eliminate or randomly gunning down someone on the street to test out a new weapon. By disregarding the questions raised by Mafia experts such as Jerry Capeci about Kuklinski's credibility, Carlo has fumbled an opportunity. Sloppy errors (e.g., Rudy Giuliani served as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, not the Eastern District) also detract from the book, which ends with a bizarre invitation to the reader to write to Kuklinski at the Trenton State Prison.

December 18, 2006
Prichard strives to navigate this marathon parade of torture and murder in an authoritative, almost aloof manner. But the clichéd, repetitive and overwrought prose frequently undermines him. Carlo's apparent sympathy toward the Ice Man further subverts Prichard's crime-show host persona. In stomach-turning detail, Prichard brings to life Richard Kuklinsky's extraordinary 40-year career of murder. The gruesome, clinical accounts of countless killings-by every method imaginable-leaves listeners wincing and feeling depleted. Prichard's voice is worn and aged, with a slight nasal quality as if getting over a cold. For the most part, he handles the voluminous narrative without flagging. When rendering Kuklinsky and various Mafia figures and associates, the audio actor employs a similar tough-guy impersonation, which amounts to dropping his voice, bleeding out the emotion and barking swear words. This sometimes leads to confusion over who's speaking. Also included are two not especially revealing jailhouse interviews with the chillingly congenial Kuklinsky.

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.