THE VETERAN Five Heart-Stopping Stories

Five stories read by three different narrators offer an entertaining, if uneven, experience. The first four stories accurately reflect the subtitle and are highly suspenseful and engaging. Patrick McNee narrates three of these with varying success. In the title story, a police procedural, McNee reads the dialogue too slowly and deliberately and with unwarranted melodrama. In "The Citizen," again an overly slow tempo is frustrating for the listener. His pace works better in "The Art of the Matter," which is mostly narrative with little dialogue. Kasonov's performance of "The Miracle" is quite successful, with convincing characters and good timing. Finally, Bruce Boxleitner reads "Whispering Wind," the least "heart-stopping" but, unfortunately, the longest story, though his delivery is quite adequate. S.S.R. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 02]