BAD COMPANY

BAD COMPANY: bad news. When a farfetched storyline is blended with a miscast reader, the result lacks both balance and continuity. In the closing hours of WWII, Hitler presents his diary, and access to billions in Nazi plunder, to a senior aide, with instructions to carry on the cause. The aide, a German nobleman, uses the funds to build an industrial fortune. He stashes the diary, which contains information that can ruin the 21st-century American president. Now the good guys are pitted against bad to recapture the diary and save the president. British reader Patrick Macnee, whose crisp diction and bright voice fit characters from the U.K. perfectly, works far too hard to present key players from the U.S., Germany, and Italy. Overplayed situations and accents scuttle the last ray of hope for this effort. Higgins fans may enjoy BAD COMPANY. Few others will. T.J.M.
(c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine [Published: FEB/ MAR 04]