THINNER

A fatal accident leads to a gypsy curse and Billy Halleck's efforts to remove it. It's a great plot, but Joe Mantegna disappoints the listener with his clumsy pacing and uneven characterizations. Mantegna's New York crime king, his old gypsy and Halleck characters, while skillfully done, cannot overcome his poor job with the several females in the book. Neither does he capture the nuances of French-Canadian dialect in Old Orchard Beach nor the subtleties of the upper-crust Connecticut accent. Not surprisingly, he also commits the dreaded "Banger" pronunciation of the author's home city. The poor narration of this volume cannot be saved by the startling and appropriate musical accents sprinkled throughout the story. What a disappointing performance of a top-notch thriller! R.P.L. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 00]