THE NIGHT TOURIST

Jack Perdue, a precocious ninth-grade classics scholar, is catapulted into an adventure in the land of the dead. This genre-crossing novel is somewhat awkward in the way its blends mythical characters with realistic settings. The character Cerberus, for example, enters the afterworld through New York's Grand Central terminal. Happily, the audio is anchored by the skillful reading of Andrew Rannels, who portrays Jack with various appropriate emotions. Jack enters the afterworld with a golden bough in the form of a subway token, but soon his time there begins to run out. Rannels's narrative pace quickens with Jack's desperation to find his dead mother and to release Euri, his deceased companion and guide, from the world of death. S.W. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/ MAY 08]