THE MISFORTUNE OF MARION PALM

This oddly bloodless audiobook is skillfully written and beautifully produced and performed. Saskia Maarleveld has a silky flexible voice, easily able to convey male and female, children and adults, and is convincing when accents are required. There is some wonderful satire of flummoxed Brooklyn Heights private school folk trying to cover their behinds when they learn Marion Palm has effortlessly embezzled a fortune from them, through plenty of fault of their own. And where has she gone, and what of her husband and daughters? Will she get caught? Do we want her to? It was hard for this listener to believe that the author herself believed in any of these characters. Could that be the production's fault? Maybe, but it didn't feel like it. B.G. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2017]