FOLLY

For terror to be believable, for it to surprise and grip the reader as it does the character one is reading about, it is necessary first to establish calm and normalcy, a reality the reader can be persuaded to identify with. It may be that the talented mystery writer Laurie King has done that here in this tale of Rae Newborn, a woman who tries to escape the demons of her past by moving to a deserted island to restore a house named Folly. Unfortunately the text is undercut so badly by the usually wonderful Frank Muller--who chooses from the first page to give every sentence, description or dialogue, the same rhythm, ending with a dum-dee-dum-dum, look-out-this-is-a-thriller whisper--that it proved an insurmountable barrier for this listener. B.G. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 02]