LAST TO KNOW

Elizabeth Adler gives narrators Joe Barrett and Amy Rubinate a near impossible challenge with this thriller. The novel alternates between multiple third-person points of view—voiced by Barrett and rotating among various characters—and the first-person point of view of a psychotic killer who isn’t revealed by name until the end—read by Rubinate. There’s a lighter, sometimes humorous, tone to Barrett’s sections, while Rubinate sounds like she’s performing a script from a daytime television drama. The two tones so sharply contradict that they could be mistaken for different books. While Barrett and Rubinate deliver fine technical performances, not much, if anything, could have rescued this audio from Adler’s obvious confusion over what story she wants to tell. J.F. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine [Published: SEPTEMBER 2014]