WINGS OVER THE WATCHER

This cozy British mystery, very Agatha Christie in modern dress, features PI Joanna Piercy, whose lover has gone off to America; her sidekick, Mike Korpanski, who's squabbling with his wife; and a fantasy-ridden woman who is writing her female doctor delusional love letters. When poor, dull middle-aged squash Beatrice Pennington suddenly disappears, we know she's rotting under a hawthorne bush long before Detective Piercy does, and more or less Why, but Judith Boyd brings all the details of this tangled web into vivid focus as the police try to figure out who. Boyd's voice is warm, her diction precise, her range of class and regional accents skillfully deployed. Most of all, she respects the conventions and has a good time, and so do we. B.G. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/ MAY 07]