THE LAST HERO

If you listen to audiobooks while exercising or driving, this book will help you lose weight or use lots of gas because it’s really hard to stop listening to it. It’s a novelized account of Henry Morton Stanley’s nineteenth-century expedition through the Congo to rescue a British outpost in deepest Africa. Robert Whitfield does a masterful job of performing Forbath’s story, using his British accent to create vivid characters, great suspense, and to describe exotic, sometimes frightful events. Whitfield’s voice is elastic enough to convincingly convey accents from proper Victorian English to Sudanese--all in the same sentence. And his phrasing and timing are impeccable. We suffer with the expedition, but also revel in its successes, all because of Whitfield’s delivery. R.I.G. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine [Published: DEC/JAN 01]