THE INTELLIGENCER

If you can accept the premise that a modern private detective's life might be in danger because of a secret she uncovers about sixteenth-century Christopher Marlowe, then you'll have fun with this book. Admittedly, the abridgment is necessarily cut-to-the-chase, leaving little room for story development. In his silky English baritone, Alfred Molina gives a nuanced, fine-tuned reading of the sections of the book about Marlowe, which are set in sixteenth-century England. Jan Maxwell reads the present-day part of the story about American private eye Kate Morgan in a pleasant, well-enunciated American voice. She uses a quick edge-of-your-seat style appropriate to the hard-boiled writing used in the modern sections. The problem is that the two fine narrators unintentionally emphasize the book's uneven writing--the moody tone of historical England doesn't mesh well with the fast, tough tone of 21st-century America. Too bad. A.C.S. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/ SEP 04]