WATCHLIST

Twenty-one members of International Thriller Writers, headed by Jeffery Deaver, collaborated on these two serial novellas of intrigue. The first, THE CHOPIN MANUSCRIPT (winner of the 2008 Audie Award for Audiobook of the Year), tells of a team of war crimes investigators headed by a musical manuscript expert. Although written by 15 different writers, the story is consistent, enthralling, and well told. The second novella, THE COPPER BRACELET, doesn't hold up as well. Featuring the same set of characters, it is nevertheless disjointed, inconsistent, and forced. Alfred Molina's phenomenal reading does much to allay the problems of the second novella. His sense of character and his ability to switch convincingly from one nationality to another help pull the disparate halves of WATCHLIST together. Other contributors include David Hewson, S.J. Rozan, Erica Spindler, Joseph Finder, Lisa Scottoline, Lee Child, Linda Barnes, Brett Battles, and Gayle Lynds, among others. S.E.S. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2010]