Harold

A magificent production. One of the most significant and thoroughly American novels of the last half-century coupled with a brilliant, sensitive narrator to create what is actually a new medium, one that does far more than any of the new, more expensive, gadgets . They are only a more convenient way of obtaining the subject matter; They do not change it. This is the perfect answer to the Nobel committe charge of "provincialism."

This is one of the best by the man who really invented the swift crime novel told largely through remarkably rich dialogue among the seediest low-level and colorful Bostonian Irish crooks in modern fiction. He is also one of the most underrated of craftsmen and most trenchant commentators in the genre. Treasure this author. There are very few other American criime writers as good as he.

John D. MacDonald served a long and fruitful apprenticeship in paperbacks to become the universal king of the hard-bitten beautifully crafted crime novel. The Travis McGee series
is the culminating work of a master who was always better than his many imitators. This opener in the series gives us plenty of crisp action and Travis, the absolute best of the lonely, sometimes cynical, knight operators in a dirty and violent world.

After reading this chiller. one becomes convinced that The Scots make great whiskey, but they have the darkest, most chilling woods in the world (outside Russia) and this setting for real Gothic novels has been too long neglected. The combination of the reader's brogue and the setting fixes this story perfectly--although at times a little exposition would clarify names and places. There is also a fine balance of illusion and reality.

Jim Harrison is one of the few contemporary writers who speaks (through all his first person narrators) as a reasonable soul who has found in this world of madness and despair the real meaning of living. His love of sex, brook trout, and the richness of every aspect of life comes to him because they are what they are and he is what he is, whether he's a State Police Detective (ret.) or a happy wanderer with a strangely exciting teen-age girl passenger : (English Major).
. I would love nothing better in life than to spend three months (brook trout season) with this richly articulate man whose found himself.

The enigmatic narrator Marlowe tells his dark story of madness and despair from the deck of a ship anchored in the Thames in the harbor of London, the then world's center of commerce and civilization. It ends in the heart of madness and despair, the Congo river deep in Africa. In this short novel, which has been called one of the most important works in modern literature, Marlow's voice is that of Kenneth Branagh, one of the finest of actors today. His voice gives a complete new dimension with an interpretation on a richer more meaningful level that is impossible with just the printed word.

This a dark apocalyptic novel, beautifully written and reverberating with levels of truth. The narrator's scriptural Calvinistic tone adds a dimension of enrichment possible only with the fullness of sound. "The Glister" has the solemnity and beauty of McCarthy's "The Road." It is easily among the finest audible books yet.

Nevada Barr is much more than a very good "crime "genre novelist; she is one of the finest local colorists and imaginative-ly perceptive novelists in our literature. Her vivid descriptions of the national parks which are the settings of her novels and the very interesting psychological developmen of her her brilliantly conceived heroine Ranger Ann Pigeon make this among thle best of the series.