E- and audiobook reviews: Graham Greene, David Baldacci, Ian Caldwell
Colin Firth gives a wonderful reading of Greene's The End of The Affair
by Graham Greene
(read by Colin Firth)
Audible Studios
(audiobook)
The craze of A-list narrators picks up pace with actor Colin Firth's award-winning meeting with Graham Greene in a recording studio. As the cover makes clear, he is not reading The End of the Affair, he "performs" it - which is a bit like saying I am not writing this review, I am dramatising it. Originally published in 1951, the novel excavates the affair between hack novelist Maurice Bendrix and Sarah Miles, riffing on Greene's own illicit wartime romance with Catherine Walston. For Bendrix, love equals obsession. Sarah, meanwhile, is wracked by the betrayal of her husband. Told in vivid flashbacks, Greene's narrative slowly gets to the heart of the matter: the reason, after Bendrix is almost killed in the blitz, Sarah rejects him for good. As so often in Greene, the erotic and the sacred do battle for a human's soul. Firth is perfectly suited to Bendrix's combination of passion and restraint, triteness and truth, duty and chaos. Melancholy lingers beneath the cool familiarity of his tones, a perfect match for Greene's meditation on breakdown - marital, psychic and national. Wonderful.
by David Baldacci
(read by Ron McLarty and Orlagh Cassidy)
Pan MacMillan
(audiobook)
David Baldacci juggles several hit series at the same time, producing the sort of punchy if forgettable thrillers that make any journey speed by a little faster. Memory Man adds a new hero to his roster: former American football star Amos Decker. Injured in the line of duty, Decker loses a lucrative career but gains a photographic memory. This first case establishes him as a version of John Connolly's Charlie Parker. Having lost his livelihood, Decker all but loses the will to live when his wife, daughter and brother-in-law are murdered. Then three years later - following suicidal thoughts, a spell on the streets, an unsuccessful foray as a private detective - a prime suspect is discovered. Baldacci's regular audiobook duo, Ron McLarty and Orlagh Cassidy, generate nice contrasts and pleasant sparks with their reading. Helped by some ominous mood music, McLarty sounds as if he is reciting the grave warnings on medicine bottles. Cassidy's evocative tones take on Mary Lancaster, Decker's former police partner, who I hope will be a long-term partner.