INNOCENT VICTIMS Two Novellas

British crime writer Minette Walters offers a diversity of time and place in these novellas. INNOCENT VICTIMS, set in 1920s England, is by far the superior title. Narrator Simon Prebble is his usual excellent self in both stories, but even he cannot save the melodramatic TINDER BOX. In the former work, Norman Thorn’s kindness moves him to court a mentally ill spinster named Elsie, who lures him into an engagement that ultimately leads to his death. The latter work is a more predictable 1990s story of English-Irish conflict, which becomes difficult to buy into when the police rely on a civilian woman and treat her as an insider. However, the title story and audio delivery are so outstanding that it's worth enduring or skipping the weaker mystery. S.G.B. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2012]