THE SECOND HUSBAND

Leslie Howard convincingly portrays the sympathetic Emma Hawke, a widow who has remarried and is trying to figure out whom she can trust. The first part of the audiobook weaves back and forth from "then," when Emma's first husband Derrick is murdered in lower Manhattan, to "now," 27 months later when she is happily married to her second husband, Tom. Howard successfully differentiates the many men and women who come into Emma's life, including a brooding teenage stepdaughter. Using pacing, appropriate emotion, and tone, Howard ramps up the tension to keep listeners eager to identify the murderer. The plot is mainly driven through dialogue, which Howard delivers masterfully as she shepherds listeners through all of the twists, turns, and reveals to the surprising denouement. E.Q. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE 2022]