OUR MUTUAL FRIEND

An attempted murder gives an heir from abroad the chance to return to England in disguise to scope out the girl his father’s will orders him to marry. Upon this slender thread Dickens hangs a long satiric novel, brimming over with the humor, sly turns of phrase and memorable characterizations that have made this author a perennial favorite. Reading the whole magilla aloud shows off David Case’s endurance, his considerable talent for dialect and characterization, as well as his thorough familiarity with Victorian locution. He would get an Earphones Award except that his effete narration style doesn’t quite jibe with Dickens’s virile narrative voice. He is sometimes sloppy. One can quibble with some of his interpretations, reminding one that an audiobook is a performance of a work and not the work itself. Y.R. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/NOV 98]