Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 19, 1993 TAG: 9311200027
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JANE SUMNER DALLAS MORNING NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"The Horse You Came In On," by Martha Grimes (Simon & Schuster Audio). Like the author's 11 other novels starring Scotland Yard Superintendent Richard Jury, this is named for a pub. In Grimes' tangled web, a trio of murders sends the English detective to Baltimore with nobleman-sleuth Melrose Plant. Together, they rush to find the link between a supposed Edgar Allan Poe manuscript and the deaths of a homeless man, a Poe scholar and museum curator. British actor Tim Curry, who played the lead in Broadway's Amadeus, delivers the goods with arch gusto. Abridged.
"Pronto," by Elmore Leonard (Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing). Actor Joe Mantegna could read the Yellow Pages and hold me enthralled. Crime writer Elmore Leonard, known for his terse, witty dialogue and local color, doesn't disappoint. A U.S. marshal strikes out on his own to bring back a fleeing sports bookie turned FBI fall guy. The chase zig-zags from Miami to the Italian Riviera and back again. Abridged.
"The Cat Who Went Into the Closet," by Lilian Jackson Braun (Dove Audio). If you were a rat in a previous life, this may not be your cup of catnip tea. But Koko the psychic Siamese is my favorite sleuth this side of the Atlantic. And the telepathic feline's whisker twitches, cat fits and deliberate pawings make grumpy journalist Jim Qwilleran, its owner, look like Sherlock Holmes. A Siamese female named Yum-Yum completes the whimsical trio. Here, Koko fishes out murder clues from the closets in a dead doyenne's mansion. My favorites in "The Cat Who . . . " series are Recorded Books' unabridged versions read by George Guidell. But Dove's Dick Van Patton makes great yowling meows. Beware the Dove versions with Theodore Bikel. Great as a folk singer-guitarist, the Austrian-born actor is all wrong for these very American tales. (Abridged).
Critic's pick:
"Skin Tight," by Carl Hiaasen (Recorded Books). If "NYPD Blue" offends, Hiaasen is not for you. But if, like me, you're still mourning the passing of mystery writer John MacDonald and his charming creation Travis McGee, Hiaasen's Mick Stranahan is a fresh breeze off the bay. The opinionated McGee lived in Florida on the Busted Flush, a houseboat he won in a card game. The sardonic Stranahan lives in a stick house on Biscayne Bay. Tony Hillerman calls Hiaasen "the Mark Twain of the crime novel," but Mick Stranahan is no Huck Finn. He attacks an assailant with a stuffed marlin's bill, crazy-glues a rival's testicles to his Cadillac and blows up an antagonist's Jaguar. Nothing escapes his gimlet eye n tabloid show hosts, ambulance chasers, cosmetic surgeons. Reader George Wilson makes the most of this funny, grim, addicting business. Unabridged.
New releases:
"Black Holes and Baby Universes," by Stephen Hawking (Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio). Unlike the theoretical physicist's "A Brief History of Time," which many purchased but failed to penetrate, this isn't purely scientific. Besides discussing how black holes give birth to baby universes, the author writes of his childhood, life at Oxford and Cambridge and living with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). Read by Simon Prebble. Unabridged.
"The Winner Within, A Life Plan for Team Players," by Pat Riley (Simon & Schuster Audio). There's more to Pat Riley than winning big at basketball and using greasy kid stuff. The 1992-93 NBA Coach of the Year puts forth some serious thoughts about attitude, achievement and teamwork. Read by the author.
by CNB