DIRTY WORK

In the latest Stone Barrington title, our hero, a cop turned lawyer, is asked by an heiress to obtain evidence that her husband is having an affair. The fiasco of hiring a photographer who falls through a skylight while taking the pictures turns into a string of murders, and a trail of dead bodies ensues. Laced with a healthy dose of intrigue and humor, this is a winner despite an uneven performance by Robert Lawrence. His deep voice works well for the character of Stone but isn't nearly as successful for the female voices. The British accents are poor and inconsistent, and the voices of the younger characters don't sound young at all. The story and the writing are strong enough to overcome these deficiencies, but with a better reader this would have been a tour de force. S.S.R. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 03]