THE DARKENING SEA

The Richard Bolitho sea story series by Alexander Kent has more than twenty volumes and is still going strong. This entry features a mature Bolitho, his enterprising nephew, Adam, and various villains and heroes fighting the French in the Napoleonic era. Like all books in the series, it is half soap opera and half action. Michael Jayston is a superb reader; his somber intonations are perfectly in tune with the older Bolitho, and he slides easily into various British and foreign accents for the other characters. He is not performing, but reading with effortless expressiveness. D.R.W. © AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: DEC/JAN 00]