OUT OF REACH

CIA operative Erin Baker watches a man doing magic tricks for children in the park. He reminds her of the man she saw when her sister disappeared 19 years earlier. Later, a little girl is reported missing. Baker joins FBI agent Alec Donovan in the search for the elusive magician and the men he works for, who play high-stakes espionage games and have children kidnapped and sold as slaves. Laural Merlington performs a number of believable voices with what seems no effort at all. Children sound childlike, women have different energies and tones, and men sound like men, each with some idiosyncratic speech pattern that separates him from the others. Merlington makes Patricia Lewin’s heart-stopper as real as the people next door. S.J.H. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/ JUL 04]