THE LEFT HAND OF GOD

The sonorous tones of Steve West perfectly suit the bleak gravity of this first volume of an epic fantasy trilogy. Thomas Cale discovers a grotesque secret that sends him and his companions, Kleist and Vague Henri, fleeing the Sanctuary of the Redeemers, where the priests brutally trained them from boyhood to become ruthless killers. But their martial and tactical skills may be insufficient to the pressures exerted by the complex politics of the city of Memphis and the sinister schemes of their former masters. West, like many British narrators, excels at exquisitely shifting his accent to indicate the social class of the speaker. He also clearly enjoys saying the charmingly bizarre names of some of the characters, such as Idris Pukke and Kitty the Hare. A.B.G. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2010]