GATEKEEPER

A heroin addict reduced to stealing to support her habit is shot during a robbery. A drug dealer is murdered. Vermont Bureau of Investigation Detective Lester Spinney stakes out a house in which his teenaged son might be smoking marijuana. VBI Agent Joe Gunther is called upon by the governor to help shut down the pipeline of drugs flooding into rural New England, and Sammie Martens, an overeager detective, goes deep undercover in an effort to assist. Christopher Graybill handles each case and each character with quiet urgency. His Joe Gunther is plodding, yet oddly soothing. His performance of Martens is properly schizophrenic as she shifts between her police and undercover personas. Graybill's Vermont, New York, and Hispanic accents add credibility to a lesser, but still engrossing, Joe Gunther novel. S.J.H.
(c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 04]