THE FACE OF TRESPASS

One problem with audiobooks is that you can't flip to the end of the book to find out what happens. Nor can you skip pages when the action rattles your nerves. Both these coping techniques would be tempting here as the dramatic narration of Ric Jerrom amplifies the nail-biting effect of Ruth Rendell's prose. Although there's no actual violence, the tension builds as an impoverished British writer becomes captivated--and manipulated--by a beautiful woman who wants him to kill her wealthy husband. It is her seductive voice, so superbly reproduced by the narrator, that casts an increasingly ominous spell. As the plot tightens, the voice gets lower and lower and more and more sinister until, at the end, it has become a sibilant whisper. Pity any timid souls who listen to that voice before bedtime! J.C. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/JUL 98]