NEVER SOMEWHERE ELSE

Andrew Napier reads this well-made Scottish thriller with such an enchanting burr that you look forward to the next ghastly crime (young ladies serially strangled and scalped) just for the pleasure or hearing him pronounce “murder.” “Mudhder” would be something like it. I have no idea if this accent is authentically Glaswegian, but Napier is a fine actor, clever at communicating the sympathy, fatigue, self-doubt, or fear his characters are feeling. Alex Gray has done a great job of making the reader suspect every character of the crimes in turn, including the lead investigators, Detective Lorimer and Solomon Brightman, the young psychologist brought in by the brass to evolve a profile of the criminal. Kudos to all involved. B.G. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 05]