SILENT SCREAM

Lynda La Plante has done her job to a turn in this richly plotted Anna Travis whodunit, but for maximum fun, Kim Hicks’s performance makes you laugh with surprise and delight as she comes up with distinct voices for so many characters that it’s like watching 25 circus clowns pile out of a Morris mini. How does she do it? La Plante’s victim—a very beautiful, very young, very self-destructive actress—is murdered in the middle of a movie. Everyone on the production is a suspect, ditto all the past leading men she slept with, their wives, her agent, and even her parents. And then Hicks also portrays the entire detective force. (It’s a high-profile case.) Hicks nails them all; plot and performance are completely satisfying. B.G. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: SEPTEMBER 2010]