DEATH ON THE ROCKS John Rawlings, Apothecary, Book 15

This fifteenth Deryn Lake mystery, featuring John Rawlings, the apothecary and amateur sleuth who solves cases in Georgian England, is beautifully performed by Michael Tudor Barnes. In Hotwell, a spa near Bristol where the fashionable (and the disreputable) take the waters, listeners are immersed in a world of color, rich delicacies, bad odors, an odious fat impostor claiming an inheritance, and a dangerous lunatic. Barnes, with vivid characterizations and a smooth narrative, perfectly depicts the milieu, manners, and persona of a spa town. This is good listening for lovers of period mysteries with familiar characters portrayed by a polished narrator. D.L.G. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine [Published: DECEMBER 2015]