Red Wolf

Narrator Cris Dukehart balances the courtship and adventures of leopard-shifter Jaycee Bordeaux and her tracker teammate, lupine-shifter Dimitri. Together, the shape-shifters investigate a renegade group in New Orleans whose leader is a bear-shifter named Brice. Dukehart's fluid voice moves as smoothly as cascading water with an appealing pitch and tone. She's especially delightful at juvenile voices. Dukehart voices Dimitri's stutter with accurate professionalism. The substantial passages of exposition in the novel's first half become somewhat monotonous, and Dukehart's even intonation doesn't help to vary the tedium. But both author and narrator find surer ground once Jaycee and Dimitri face the danger of confronting Brice and strategize their attack. Their hard-won happy ending will fully satisfy listeners. C.A. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine