Does a low pitched male voice lend authenticity to a bodice ripper? A rich Houston real estate agent calls on her ex-lover to help protect their daughter from a violent maniac. Tough Customer by Sandra Brown read by Victor Slezak

After the funeral, there is the family and the village. There is a batty aunt, a hysterical and heirless English lord, his ancient butler, and a smattering of inadequate and weak-willed in-laws, waiting for their share. These are the leftovers of the comfortable class, who married badly and relied onAfter The Funeral by Agatha Christie read by Hugh Fraser

It is not unusual to hear unflattering descriptions of Americans in the press, but when did Americans get so ugly in fiction? Consider a white haired couple who seem to be wearing each other's clothes in Donna Leon's Blood from a Stone: The woman wore a flannelBlood from a Stone by Donna Leon::David Colacci

Imagine three divorced fairy godmothers wearing red hats feeding you yellow cake, laying out your new life, and getting you ready for the charity ball by teaching you how to play bridge. There you have it. The almost penniless newly divorced matron with good manners sets up a home decoratingRed Hat Society's Queens of Woodlawn Avenue by Regina Hale Sutherland read by Staci Snell

As good as reading a short history of the rise and rise of the garden variety jihadist. A retired SAS agent is mending the roof of his medieval barn when he is summoned to a final counter-terrorist mission. The medieval political system also needs mending. So begins a storyThe Afghan::Frederick Forsyth read by Robert Powell

Lottie, Director of the local Historical Society, is assembling the memories and diaries of the townsfolk into a local history.  She is also stirring up the dust of very old emotions, old enmities, old wrongs. The old families get hysterical and the hysteria turns to one murder, then another. Things getDeadly Descent by Charlotte Hinger read by Karen White

And it occurred to him that the most important thing about Rode was that he had no friends. Smiley was reminded of Buchner's fairy tale about the child left alone on the Earth, who  finding no one to talk to  went to the moon because it smiled atA Murder of Quality by John Le Carre read by Keith Lloyd

Forget Harley Street. The latest design in shrinks is a six foot 250 pound lesbian weight lifter who runs a pub with her bosomy girlfriend, and offers bed, morning after breakfast, and laundry service. This is what the 21st century male patient wants: a powerful, intuitive M.D. who canThe Chameleon's Shadow by Minette Walters read by Simon Vance

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

Food, sex, and Rome. Delicious words string together bodies of edible women and edible animals and recipes of both until it seems uncivilized to separate eating and coupling.The Food of Love::Anthony Capella :: Rocco Sisto

"Karp leaned back in his chair, swivelled to face the window, chewed on a pencil. Murrow, seeing this, left quietly, closing the door behind him. He knew these were the signs that Karp was entering Karpland . . ." as are we, God bless us, until Tanenbaum decides to makeAbsolute Rage by Robert Tanenbaum::Nick Sullivan

Sharpen your pencils, open your looseleaf, sit up, take notes. This is an impressive, intelligent, well researched white-paper-thriller about silly, soppy, environmental theories and the well-funded, well publicized, well-established bureaucracies which profit by circulating them. 'State of Fear' is the coinage of a 'Mental Ecologist' whose hysterical critique of a toxicState of Fear by Michael Crichton read by George Wilson

Oliver August, correspondent for the Times of London in China is learning Chinese. His teacher asks him what Oliver means. Oliver responds: 'Since a man that works on a farm was a farmer, a man who harvested olives was an Oliver'. His teacher then couples two radicals - oliveInside the Red Mansion by Oliver August read by Simon Vance

On the sidewalk outside of The Kitchennette on West Broadway, the old men are debating the apologetics of New York Liberals bending over to receive  Islamic sensitivity training. One famous lawyer takes out the day's NYTIMES,  which reports that: "The Islamic Society of America is complaining that television shows portray Moslems asEscape by Robert Tanenbaum read by Mel Foster

Venice is an old small town of old small sins. The Venice, that is, of Commissario Guido Brunetti, who may want no more of life than to read Xenophon and wait for his wife to come home from the Rialto with soft shell crabs. It is a Venice ofFriends in High Places by Donna Leon::Anna Fields