It's always interesting to explore a place through its crime scenes. Like the not yet totally gentrified neighborhoods of Northwest Philadelphia, on the eastern bank of the Schuylkill River. Which runs through this mystery as it runs through Pennsylvania. All along the river young women are being murderedMerciless by Rich Montanari read by Scott Brick

Nick, Miami news reporter, is a decent, semi-sad, semi-serious, guy. One day he is sent out to cover a typical Miami highway accident. Dead on the scene are his wife and one of his twin daughters. One year later Nick is a decent semi sad semi serious guy with one daughterEye of Revengeby Jonathon King

Some Hard-Boiled Characters of 20th C (by the Members of Rara-Avis, compliled by Joe Dante and Mark Blumenthal, 2002) (numerical order does not denote value) Philip Marlowe (from the series by Raymond Chandler) Sam Spade (from the novel, The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett) 3. The Continental Op (from theHard Boiled

Again, we have Washington with its burials and its laudations betrayals become elegy -- where the ones praising the dead are also their executioners. A Roman tradition carried brightly on by moral gamesmen, whose empires are supported by three rhetorical questions: Is it ethical for men in power, men entrusted byA House Divided by Mike Lawson read by Joe Barrett

Holly is a youngish, prettyish, slightly loopy, Dublinite whose happy husband tells her what to do. Everybody jokes that if Gerry ever died, he would have to leave her a list ... and when he dies, he does. Leave a list. Sort of. Holly is given 10 envelopes, with instructions,P.S. I Love You by Cecilia Ahern Narrated by Bernadette Dunne

More than a little over the top, Clara Hutt is dropping her 2 boys off this morning wearing her pajama bottoms (again) and wondering (again) why all the other mothers can arrive at school with perfectly starched blouses and expertly applied makiage. Not now, Darling, I'm Paaaarking," andIndia Knight's My Life on a Plate read by Jill Tanner

She sounds like your high school Home Economics teacher, or the Hall Mother in your college Dormitory, or your new semi-retired accountant: clear, crisp, well organized and about 23 pounds overweight. She sounds pretty and pinkish and lipsticked. She is in her mid fifties and owns a Needlework ShopHanging by a Thread by Monica Ferris read by Susan Boyce

Slow, cloddish, cumbersome and overcooked dialogue stretches across this morality play about an ugly presidential election. Add the 'aching sadness' and 'fatal failures' and 'eyes shining with tears' of flat white characters, but read on. Hear the slimy campaign advise of slimy campaign managers: "Girlfriend is bad. BlackThe Race by Richard North Patterson Narrated by Michael Boatman

1948 is a strange time to be a Jew. For Lonzman, the hero of this tale, it is the year the Jews in Israel are driven into the sea, and get a small beachside strip of Alaska as compensation. It is the year Lonzman's father arrives in downtown Sitka whereThe Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon performed by Peter Riegert

One of the good Patterson & Gross collaborations, with a new villain called "the Israeli" and another called "the electrician". The descriptions of Haifa and Patagonia could have been cut out of Wiki. Joe Mantegna does adorable Italian goombas, and respectable Chechnian, Russian and Middle Eastern hoods. Seven discsJudge and Jury::James Patterson::Joe Mantegna

Utterly charming tale of British advertising executive fed up with the petty hysteria of bosses, clients and ex-wives. He quits. He drives to the south of France, meets a beautiful real estate agent, and opens a hotel. But things are not so simple...Hotel Pastis by Peter Mayle read by John Franklyn-Robbins

Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me hard boils the story from the start: London as the small bad city with its own 87th precinct: Brant, who cuts a bit off the top of every drug bust, makes himself loved by women, plays laid back surfer dude copCalibre by Ken Bruen read by Gerard Doyle

Very rye, very laid-back, low-brow, funny in a way only a Goombah from NJ reading words with more than one syllable can do funny. Ferrone does dumb Goombah so well you laugh twice at each joke: once at the reading, once at the punchline. Burglar Bernie Roudhenbarr is trying to quit burgling. Now heThe Burglar Who Liked To Quote Kipling by Lawrence Block read by Richard Ferrone

An English schoolboy's happy meal: a murder, a bit of Herodotus, a little masochism, a little colonialism, a shovelful of archaeology, a box of cheroots, a little petit bourgeois pettiness, a pretty but not too pretty girl who works with animals, a plain, uxurious police inspector, and a healthy dollopThe Lost Army of Cambysus by Paul Sussman read by Gordon Griffin

The tired old technique of a text within a text popped in the microwave with a 2K twist: a mothers diary to her one year old son. The kid dies. Instant tear jerker, instant Oprah Book of the Year, instant Right to Life siege technology. Use it to dummify yourSUZANNE'S DIARY FOR NICHOLAS by James Patterson::Becky Ann Baker