Sun Mar 07, 2004 Forty years ago, this would have been a Sandra Dee movie. Rock Hudson would have played the smart, rich, charming, befuddled and gorgeous groom; a french actress would have played the loopy, eternally foreign mother, and Chevalier would have played Teddy: irresponsible, felonious, a sexual misadventurer. AndManeater by Gigi Levangie Granger read by Uma Thurman

Increasingly, the essay, the critique, the report and the annunciation are being reconfigured in the form of fiction. Michael Crichton has mastered this form. His Next is more than a story about the re-distribution of genomes; it is Critique, Satire, Farce and Science Report, with: just the right amount of ironyNext by Michael Crichton read by Dylan Baker

Think about a perfect sandwich. A happy assemblage of fresh food: bacon, lettuce, tomato. Good and familiar characters, pretty or restful setting, easy, recognizable relationships. Funny dialogue. Simple white or brown bread. A little bit of mayo.  There's a singular and single female divorce lawyer with a very hungry sexBetween Sisters by Kristin Hannah read by Laural Merlington

The House of UnAmerican Activities Committee (on which sits Dick Nixon) is looking for Communists, and finds a few poor schmucks in Hollywood. Some Jews are inquisitioned, black-listed, and disappeared from the credits. Their words are found in screenplays by unknowns from Wyoming and Maine. Other JewsBeverly Hills Dead by Stuart Woods read by Tony Roberts

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

Schumpeter once wrote that the Stock market is a poor substitute for the holy grail. In other words, capitalism is more or less incapable of producing belief in itself. And yet, there are people who do believe in it. Ziad Abdelnour is one of them. ForMeet the Giants: An Interview with Ziad Abdelnour

There are inside words and outside words. Sometimes outside words - like Inspector Wexford's "They don't have handbags anymore," - sound like inside words because they form a running commentary on something like the world. Sometimes, like Hannah Goldsmith's, they escape, aciduously, censoriously. Throughout theJohn Lee reads Ruth Rendell:End in Tears.

The lines are drawn quickly - boom boom boom. Here is Israel, here is Russia, here is history. Here is crime, here is terror. Here stands Gabriel Allon: here, on the side of art. And Ivan stands here on the side of death. Like a Tarot layout. There is a bird's Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva

The salad dressing was the only one Partain ever used: "9 parts olive oil, one part red wine vinegar, vinegar soaked salt, ground black pepper and more garlic than most people liked." Write this down. Ross Thomas' recipes are rare, legendary and authoritative. As are his stories, his characters, andAh, Treachery! by Ross Thomas read by Frank Muller

Not since James Bond have we witnessed such a "spectacular mesomorph, built of  nothing except large quantities of bone, sinew and muscle." Indeed, his body introduces him: ...with his shirt off  most people saw only his scars. He had a dozen minor nicks and cuts plus a dimpled 38 bullet holeLee Child's Jack Reacher in Nothing to Lose read by Dick Hill

A delightful, witty murder mystery about a small-town gated-community studded with the usual wealthy sociopathic suspects and gorgeous social commentary. Waldorf Pines is an exclusive ex-1920's golf-course club on which marbled kitchens and bathrooms have been built, bricked over with English Tudors and populated by odd, classless, moneyed characters badlyBlood in the Water by Jane Haddam read by David Collacci

CLEVER, hip, femme-politik story about lovably lost fbi anti-type and girl mountain climber fight Systemic corruption. Swell characterization; plot just short of really believable. Kyle is getting better all the time.Free Fall by Kyle Mills read by Michael Kramer

What begins as a story about a girly James Dean with two wicked sisters and a  drunk mother becomes a story about a CPW apartment building and its history, its doorman, its neighbors. Tina Finn is outrageous and outraged, at everyone with a bank account  or a stable identity, at herTwelve Rooms With A View by Theresa Rebeck read by Marguerite Gavin

There is always a boy and a dog (....and a psychopath) After all, you're inside the mind of Dean Koontz , and its the loneliest night in the world, and you've just seen the saddest thing on earth, and there are monsters in the backyard, and youONE DOOR AWAY FROM HEAVEN by DEAN KOONTZ read by ANNE TWOMEY 

Disgraced, crazed, outlawed for his goodie goodieness, ex-prosecutor for the Justice Department is given one last project: investigate the disappearance of Martin Green, an aide on the intelligence committee. J is coupled with a Southern belle-neophyte FBI agent, and instructed to find nothing.Law of Gravity by Stephen Horn read by Dylan Baker