The latest audiobooks reviewed
The Two of Us: My Life with John Thaw By Sheila Hancock Read by Sheila Hancock Bloomsbury, 4 CDs, 5hrs. £14.99
Memoir is too small a word for this visceral, tempestuous book. Sheila Hancock uses the death of the man known to the world as Inspector Morse as the starting-point for an examination of their lives together - and apart - from working-class childhoods to fame and celebrity, through alcoholism, separation and cancer. The book is uncommonly well written, full of wit and intelligence; on audio, Hancock's delivery is beautifully judged, perky when the occasion calls for it, pleasingly muted when it does not. "Didn't you used to be Sheila Hancock?" a fan once asked her. She was: she still is; and if she doesn't get a fistful of awards for this peformance, there's no justice.
The Star of Kazan Eva Ibbotson Read by Ruth Jones MacMillan, 6 CDs, 6 hrs. 12.99
If you're going somewhere with kids in the car over the summer, don't go without this magical tale set in Imperial Vienna. A baby found in a church, a gypsy boy with a horse, a crumbling castle in Germany, a dog with one eye, three eccentric professors, two kindly cooks - all that's missing is the partridge in the pear tree, and it's probably in there somewhere. Above all, this is a study of friends who stick together through thick and thin. No scary bits, either, so it will embrace listeners from; oh, about eight to 80.
PS, I Love You By Cecelia Ahern Read by Dervla Kirwan HarperCollins, 3 CDs, 3hrs 49min. £13.99
Does the world need another cheeky, confident, likeable Irish chicklitterateuse? Well, probably not. But this one happens to be the Taoiseach's daughter - and as it happens, her debut novel is cheeky, confident and not at all bad - even if you can't stand this sort of thing. With an unusual plot spin which hinges on the death of the heroine's husband in chapter one, and the clever device of a series of monthly letters from the deceased, things tick rather than trudge along: Dervla Kirwan pitches her reading perfectly; and without wanting to give anything away in the ending department, let's just say that it's not nearly as cheesy as it might be.
Catherine de Medici By Leonie Frieda Read by Anna Massey Orion audio, 4 tapes, 6hrs 30min. 12.99
Leonie Frieda is a newcomer to the "big chunky biog" genre and, on the evidence of this spell-binding delve into the hothouse politics of 16th-century France, a very welcome one. Catherine is known to history as "The Black Queen" thanks to the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 20,000 Protestants in 1572; not (entirely) her fault, says Frieda, who presents us with a tough, charming, indefatigable woman and a consummate politician. The granddaughter of Lorenzo de Medici was married off at 14 by her uncle, the Pope; unable to conceive a child, she hit upon the idea of drilling holes in her bedroom floor in order to spy on her husband in bed with his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. This unorthodox sex education paid off: Catherine eventually gave birth to 10 children. Sorcery, spying and senseless slaughter - this book has it all, and is read with unfailing esprit by the plummy Anna Massey.
State of Fear By Michael Crichton Read by John Redford Lloyd HarperCollins, 4 tapes, 6hrs. £13.99
Global warming? Ho hum. Michael Crichton's characters may be pure cardboard, but his scientific scenarios are so real you can almost smell them. State of Fear features a cast of paranoid humanoids so lifeless they make the Jurassic Park dinosaurs seem like desirable guests at a dinner party: but the real-life rant at the end, in which Crichton comes on stage to compare the current obsession with global warming to the 19th century's fondness for eugenics (and, therefore, he implies, to the political policies of the Third Reich) makes the whole thing worthwhile. Global dimming, anyone?
