Capital by John Lanchester read by Colin Mace

Clever social critique wrapped up in smart, pretty fiction, with a side of acerbic wit. Beautifully thought out by a very ordered English-speaking mind.

19 Years of Reviews

The last of the Rabbi Small series narrated with an annoying over-aggressive punkishness by Guidall -- to intimate, perhaps, the intellectual aggression of Rabbi Small, the clever not-to-be socialized puzzle solver and prayer leader of the Conservative Jews of Barnard's Crossing Massachusetts. The characters are at least as aliveThe Day the Rabbi Resigned by Harry Kemelman read by George Guidall

A wealthy society housewife discovers that her husband is having an affair during a dinner party. She leaves the marriage and with a little help from her friends loves other men, makes her own money, and succeeds. Hmm. Fast Friends by Jill Mansell

A sister who witnessed her brother's murder goes back to her home town after 10 years to find the killer. As usual with Sharon Sala, the main character is layered, magnetic, surrounded by friends and neighbors each of whom reflect her differently... There are also the usual divisions ofBetrayed by Sharon Sala

Have a bit of Christie as social chronicler, as drawing room critic of a leisure class which presents itself as a platform of unemployment. It is 1946 and the Angkatells are gathered togethered, after the murder. Lucy, the mistress of cognitive deviations, Henrietta, clever, independent and detached, Midge,Agatha Christie The Hollow read by Hugh Fraser

A distressing picture of the unhappy situation of the losing class within a classless society. Grace is a 37 year old female loser within this losing class. She lives at the edge of a self-consciously wealthy Palm Beach ghetto of sectional wealth. She has a teenage bitch-daughter with a whine.Mourning Glory by Warren Adler::

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

Dick Francis died in his home on the Cayman Islands. He was 89. A successful steeplechase jockey, Francis turned to writing after he retired from racing in 1957. He penned 42 novels, many of which featured racing as a theme. His books were translated into more than 20 languages, and inDick Francis 1921-2010

Has anyone else noticed a spectacular and embarrassing silliness among the old guard of East Coast scribblers? As though they were trying to write comic books, and couldn't figure out how to convert text into images? Gone are the wry, dry, street talk, the inside cracks of persons, cities, institutions.Capture by Robert Tanenbaum read by Charles Leggett

It is said that this book does not reconstruct the Diana accident. It doesn't. It reconstructs what might not have been an accident if a sensitive, guilt ridden orphan named Samuel Carver ("Call me Carver") who threatens to break pinkies had arranged for a car to blow up in aThe Accident Man by Tom Cain read by John Lee

Michael Cantela is the youngest winner of the Investment Advisor of the Year at the elite investment firm of Saxton Silvers. He has a knack for making rich people richer, an apartment on Sutton Place, an unemployed wife, and an eight or nine figure personal portfolio. ThatMoney To Burn by James Grippando, narrated by Jonathan Davis

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

Four narrators read back to back the recollections of five 'Angry Housewives' in Minnesota. Each voice adds to the prism of personalities which reflects how different five women sound from one another, even when they are reading the same books. Unlike the women in Mary McCarthy's The Group, which was perhapsAngry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik Performed by Ruth Ann Phimister, Christine Mcmurdo Wallis, Christina Moore, Kate Forbes and James Jenner

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 reads, and reads, and reads... and one forgets how good it feels to consider the world through the jolly eyes of a clever and forgiving judge. P.D. James, for example. Consider the small Anglican college of St Alselm's, faithful not only to God and Church but to the immemorialDeath in Holy Orders by P.D. James Narrated by Charles Keating

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