PALE HORSE COMING

Earl Swagger, Hunter’s tough ex-Marine, reappears here in a tale both biblical and bestial. Investigating a disappearance, Swagger and his friend, Sam Vincent, visit Thebes State Penal Farm (Colored) in 1951 Mississippi and barely escape with theirlives. What they witness convinces them that the place must be erased from the Earth; Swagger rounds up some old war buddies (real-life hero Audie Murphy among them) to get the job done. The reading is fully voiced; the menace in the prison guards’ drawls reinforces the cruelty of their actions. Sam, whose no-kill insistence gets them into trouble in the first place, is appropriately stuffy. William Dufris makes you see the buildings and the surrounding swamps, hear the dogs, experience the misery of the inmates. If you can take the graphic violence, somehow made more graphic in audio, this is a winner. J.M.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2003 Audie Award Finalist © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 03]