Sounds Like Murder: Clean American Fun

ISBN 10: 0375402020 ISBN 13: 9780375402029

Publisher: Random House Audio, 1998

Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler presents
Sounds Like Murder
Original, unabridged mysteries available on audio

1 cassette / 110 minutes
Unabridged
Read by Darrell Larson

"This is old-fashioned story-telling at its best.  Interesting and involving tales from some of the masters of mysteries."
-Michael Connelly, author of Blood Work
Three thousand acres next to Branson, Missouri, is a gold mine to the wealthy and eccentric Sir Reginald Hollister.  "Clean American Fun" could be the biggest theme park north of Disneyland.  There's one catch: when a woman is found murdered, all eyes and evidence point to Hollister.  But when two secret service agents arrive on the scene, suddenly politicians, actors, and an irreverent revered all have reason to dispense with "Clean American Fun."

Other titles in the SOUNDS LIKE MURDER series include:
Driving Lessons by Ed McBain
The Case of the Scottish Tragedy by June Thompson
The Poster Boy by Stephen Solomita
The Sedgemoor Stranger by Peter Lovesey
A Tale About a Tiger by S.J. Rozan

Review:

Christopher Newman's short mystery Clean American Fun mixes greed, corruption, lust, and murder to create an interestingly wicked plot set smack dab in the middle of the American heartland. This down-home setting suits the everyman's voice of narrator and actor Darrel Larson just fine as he calmly spins Newman's murderous tale.

The story begins as a ruthless English billionaire starts buying up property around Branson, Missouri, stepping on a lot of toes in the process. The local folks don't like this interloper one bit, and when the evidence in a particularly nasty murder points to the town's new and unwelcome neighbor, they like him even less. "The crime of which Hollister stood accused was heinous no matter how you sliced it: Amber Billingsley, a senior-to-be at Branson High, was found nude in a culvert near Table Rock Dam. Dead by strangulation." Before long, the media, politicos, and clergy stir things up, and it takes some serious sleuthing to uncover the whole sordid truth.

Larson uses his voice to its fullest, giving a satisfactory performance. He sometimes struggles with some of the character's accents, but since Newman has thrown everyone from a backwater Bubba to a British aristocrat into his melting pot of a cast, few narrators wouldn't. (Running time: two hours, one cassette) --George Laney

From the Back Cover:

"What a great idea! Stories to drive by. I loved them."
-Robert B. Parker

" . . . the greatest audio book idea in a long time."
-Palm Beach Post

"Mystery buffs take heed: Six stories, written specifically for audio, mark the debut of an excellent collection of whodunits. These two-hour stories [are] unbeatable for short drives." --The New York Post