THE MAZE AT WINDERMERE

The complex plot of this literate, deeply satisfying audiobook has a different narrator for each of five periods overlayed in a palimpsest. The novel starts in present-day Newport, Rhode Island, with a handsome tennis pro courting an heiress (and she him), then reels back to the Gilded Age, then the Civil War, the eighteenth century, and, at last, the Colonial period, five stories told in rotation, cannily echoing each other. Each plot reflects abiding American issues of racism, anti-Semitism, social climbing, wealth, and poverty, echoing through time. The storytelling is artful and fresh, and the four male narrators are wonderfully effective, each in different ways. Caitlin Davies is weaker, her voice too contemporary and her delivery singsong, but that's a minor defect in an arresting, affecting production. B.G. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2018]