VICTIMS

Two Cambridge University students botch a robbery in an English village, and one of them kills an entire family; they escape undetected. Fast forward to six years later, when the murderer's accomplice returns to the village to try to exorcise the demons that have daily tormented him all that interval. Unaware of his secret, his landlady, falls passionately in love with him, and he thinks that perhaps life can be good again. But then all hell breaks loose. This grisly and often frightening novel is made much better by the excellence of reader Simon Shepherd. He thoughtfully uses pauses, inflections, whispers, accents, and all manner of emotional responses to help us understand that the word "victims" admits of many exemplars. T.H. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/ NOV 01]