RANCHERO

As Nick Reid, repo man, seeks to recover a 1969 Ford Ranchero from a meth-lab king in the Mississippi Delta, listeners enjoy the ride through the seedy underbelly of the rural South. Narrator David Carpenter’s good-ole-boy tone and lackadaisical pace propel the humor of the novel. And we need to be able to laugh at these characters—otherwise they’d be repulsive. Carpenter’s clichéd voices are appropriate for this cast of trailer trash since the characters, as written, never depart from their own stereotypes. Carpenter’s narration gives each redneck a signature quirky voice, which helps distinguish between the depraved, the druggies, and the shifty opportunists. F.T. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: JANUARY 2012]