HORNBLOWER AND THE CRISIS

[Editor’s Note: The following is a combined review with HORNBLOWER IN THE WEST INDIES.]--Chivers Audio has a knack for choosing just the right reader, and Christian Rodska is marvelous as an interpreter of C.S. Forester's famous, self-conscious naval hero of the Napoleonic era, Horatio Hornblower. Rodska offers the accents of England with raspy good humor, rising tension during the action scenes, and thoughtful cadences during times of quiet and rumination. The West Indies title is complete as originally published and consists of several intertwined novellas, while the CRISIS is a last, unfinished novel to which are added a couple of unrelated Hornblower short stories. Nothing goes wrong in this first-class presentation. D.R.W. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/ SEP 01]