The Highway Kind

The subtitle--"Tales of Fast Cars, Desperate Drivers, and Dark Roads"--tells it all and makes this story collection perfect for a road trip--assuming you leave the kids at home. Will Collyer and John Glouchevitch alternate narrating, with Kathleen McInerney taking over on a couple stories. McInerney and Glouchevitch drop us neatly into the various worlds of these mostly hardened or hard-luck characters. Collyer's performance is less consistent, with occasional forced vernacular accents and narrative choices that sound inauthentic, such as one character in a first-person story who speaks with an accent yet his internal dialogue is unaccented. Still, the collection remains an irresistible choice for those who love both noir stories and speeding down dark and winding roads. K.W. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine