TRANSGRESSIONS: PRICE OF DESIRE

Three novellas offer some of mysteries' best writers. MERELY HATE features the detectives of the 87th Precinct, and WALKING AROUND MONEY focuses on the bumbling crook John Dortmunder. The standout is HOSTAGES, in which the head of the Protestant cause in Ireland refuses to step down for a more moderate leader, even when he and his family are taken hostage by men who will stop at nothing, even murder, to have their politics accepted. Three skilled readers deliver the goods, but the narrator for the "Irish troubles" story, John Keating, is best--speaking in a convincing brogue, with tension building and tempo quickening as the drama escalates to its savage end. M.T.B. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine [Published: DEC 05/ JAN 06]