THE MAN IN THE RED COAT

Aping exactly the hauteur of a French aristocrat, narrator Saul Reichlin embodies La Belle Epoque. Dr. Samuel Pozzi (the man in the red coat ) was a climber and a dandy. Vanity, adultery, and the acquisition of rare objects were his passions. Booker Prize winner Barnes sets traditional narration aside to give a pre-COVID embrace to an era that is known--if it all-- by the naughty quotations of the naughty Oscar Wilde. Dueling was safer than surgery, and it seems vital to be sure that the curtains on which Pozzi's blood was splattered were from Liberty & Co. You can reject this production in horror or surrender to the haunting, glorious music of the past. B.H.C. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2020]