SECRET ASSET

If forgetting you are being read to is the sign of a good audiobook narrator, then performer Emma Fielding hits the mark. Her soft voice lets listeners lose themselves in MI5 Officer Liz Carlyle's hunt for an illusive IRA mole inside Britain's counterterrorism division. However, the lyrical quality of her voice doesn't fully convey the necessary tension of sequences such as a car bomb that threatens to detonate in the middle of an Oxford graduation ceremony. Fielding's Irish accents are as believable as her own British speaking voice, but she struggles to sound realistic as characters of other nationalities. Nevertheless, Rimington's mole manages to be more than a one-note villain, and his acts of revenge have surprising motivations and unexpected outcomes. J.T. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine [Published: DEC 07/ JAN 08]