BLOOD ATONEMENT

In an interesting variation on the traditional British detective novel, BLOOD ATONEMENT interweaves a story of long-ago love with a modern murder mystery. A woman is killed, her teenage daughter disappears, and the only clue is a stray hair on the woman's body that yields some mitochondrial DNA—and a family tree that stops a century ago. It's fun, and along the way you learn lots of genealogy. Colin Mace uses a slightly deeper tone for the historical sections, which signals the shifting era perfectly. And his narrative voice is melodic and pleasant. My only complaint is that he reads with almost too much emphasis on-each-word, but it doesn't reduce the pleasure in this clever and suspenseful novel. A.C.S. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2010]