NUMBERED ACCOUNT

Nicholas Neumann gives up his fiancée and a prestigious position in a New York investment firm to track down the person responsible for his father's murder twenty years earlier. George Guidall is masterful at taking the listener through the complex plot and technical passages about international banking. Each of the many characters has a distinctive voice, complete with appropriate accent, and Guidall is consistent in maintaining each voice. His skill at foreign accents is also evident. It's unfortunate, however, that there is little variety in tempo and drama; every sentence is delivered with the "punch" of a staccato burst, with insufficient differentiation among descriptive passages, flashbacks, and climax points. A recording of this length demands these distinctions. S.S.R. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 02]