HELL OR HIGH WATER

Sometimes an audiobook narrator must be a juggler, and this book presents such a situation. Roxanne Hernandez deftly handles this evocative and sometimes creepy thriller, which combines a young New Orleans-based reporter’s search for registered sex offenders who disappeared after Hurricane Katrina with her efforts to locate a missing tourist. Hernandez paces the book well, a particularly critical requirement when the material itself can be unsettling and some of the characters seem especially unsavory or less than credible. The glue that holds the story together is Hernandez’s nuanced presentation of reporter Nola Cespedes, whose intriguing and intense personality dominates the novel and allows the listener to focus on a story that otherwise might not be nearly as compelling. D.J.S. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2012]