MASSACRE POND

Beautiful descriptions of the Maine woods are told from the viewpoint of a game warden who becomes entangled in his second mystery. A subplot (based on real life) involves an entrepreneur/philanthropist who wants to create a national park with her own land. Sadly, neither the story nor the narrator rises to the occasion. Henry Leyva does a decent job portraying protagonist Mike Bowditch, providing a straightforward voice for the narrative and appropriate emotional levels when necessary. However, his renditions of Franco-American and Downeast accents are painful to the ear, and his overall timing stumbles in many places, resulting in sentences with odd phrasing. There are also a number of mispronunciations of Maine expressions that will be noticeable to those familiar with the locale. M.C. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2013]