A house too old, with too many rooms and too many academics -- all the elements of a ghost story, without a ghost.  Summer dissolves into eating, gardening, coupling, and conjecture: who is in the house?Someone in the House by Barbara Michaels read by Barbara Rosenblat

Although less terrible than usual, Brick can't do funny. And this book can be funny. The ram rod straight CIA trainer; the queer, ruthless, demented Director of Operations; the stubborn, nerdish, accidentally lucky pseudo-operative determined to avenge his murdered girlfriend..... Then of course he bumps into a woman who The Amateur: A Novel of Revenge by Robert Littell read by Scott Brick

Self-righteous, five foot eleven cunt-cop does a "If I have to choose between doing the right thing and ratting on my cop-boyfriend I'd rather be a cunt" and spoils this perfectly curious re-take of vice-cop falls in love with wretched and beautiful prostitute. Don't you hate it when the PROTAGONIST isRed Light by T. Jefferson Parker

It is not obvious that there are soldiers missing in action from the war in Iraq. It is said that the Arabs do not take prisoners, do not leave Americans alive. So the horror of a category of men archived by the subjunctive, neither real nor unreal, neither past norThe Confirmation :: Thomas Powers read by George Guidall

Charlie has been a guest and a prisoner of the dictator of Batanga for 12 years when he has an affair with the dictator's favorite wife. After the wife is tortured, Charlie extradites himself to America, and stands trial for an old murder. The crime is investigated, reconstructedPhillip Margolin, Fugitive, read by Jonathan Davis

In Cape October during the rainy season, but May is not the rainy season, you can expect a thunder storm along about 3 or 4 every afternoon... The rain when it comes mercilessly assaults the sidewalk and the streets. . . But the heat and the humidity follow asAlice in Jeopardy by Ed McBain read by Bernadette Dunne

The voice is everything. Instead of the typical pomposity of a haughty OBE accent, spouting that mixture of bad faith, betrayal, and malice so characteristic of the displaced British upper class, we have a whisper, a tempered, middle brow tone telling a tale about a slightly fat slightly alcoholic NottinghamROUGH TREATMENT by JOHN HARVEY::JOHN WILKINSON

It could be any small college town and any next door neighbor. But the town is Promise Falls and the neighbors next door are The Langleys. The story begins when they are murdered. Bert the policeman investigates the neighborhood, starting with Jim Cutter's house. Jim has beenToo Close To Home by Linwood Barclay read by Christopher Lane

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

CJ Critt's sweet, well enunciated, sing song voice turns even a murder mystery into a fairy tale. Once upon a time, Judge Knott (pronounced Judge not!) found a book of manners, probably given to newly engaged 19th century women preparing for wedding, marriage and domestic life. Each chapter begins withRituals of the Season::Margaret Maron::CJ Critt

Imagine overhearing the comments of secretaries, girlfriends, GS-11s, GS-18s, CIA heads of station, assistants to CIA heads of station, busty, born-again Texan society matrons, outrageously charming right-wing politicians with more friends than God, superstitious immigrants and sons of immigrants, Muj(ahadeen) terrorists, Afghani torturers, Pakistani tyrants, Egyptian defenseCharlie Wilson's War by George Crile read by Christopher Lane

A very clever book, horribly named. Holly the perky divorced real estate agent shows Bill a very very big house after Bill's partner tells him to buy Tara for their new law office. "Think what this house says about the people who live here....!" she says. It says that they have spentPMS Outlaws::Sharyn McCrumb read by Barbara Rosenblat

At what point can one say that a man is a cheat? When he buys a house from you, when he tells you how to avoid paying income tax, when you help him misrepresent himself, when he helps you find a woman you can marry, when he callsGood Faith by Jane Smiley read by Richard Poe

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

Constructed as a series of letters to a slightly fay, newly divorced, 45 year old antiques expert, this whodunit offers criminality inset in decorating news and auction house frippery. Mrs. Sterling Glass is keeping her ex-husband's last name because "who would give up the nameStealing with Style by Emyl Jenkins read by Linda Stephens