DANGEROUS WOMEN

DANGEROUS WOMEN is an outstanding mystery anthology, with nary a dud and many star turns by five actors reading the likes of Nelson DeMille, Joyce Carol Oates, Anne Perry, and Elmore Leonard, certainly a personal best for Editor Otto Penzler. And praises be, the narrator of each story is identified as the story begins. Alan Sklar’s deep, velvet voice has just enough grit in it to create a delicious sense of danger. Michael Prichard provides deadpan wit in readings with a slightly steely tang. Patrick Lawlor ably handles the stories narrated by younger men, and Ellen Archer’s warm, contemporary voice, the women. These two even switch mid-sentence when the narrative voice breaks off in Laura Lippman’s wonderfully creepy “Dear Penthouse Forum.” Additional pluses are the three-minute tracks, and notations on each disc of the stories on it and the track at which each begins. A terrific production. B.G. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 05]