cover image The German Woman

The German Woman

Paul Griner, , read by Anne Flosnik and Michael Page. . Brilliance, $29.99 (0pp) ISBN 978-1-4233-9199-9

For a novel with two main characters, logic dictates that each performer should take one of the leading roles to create a mini-cast production, but this audio proceeds the old-fashioned way, in tag-team style. Anne Flosnik, performing the first section set primarily in Germany after the Great War, has a brittle voice that takes some getting used to. Her range is dwarfed by the talented Michael Page, who picks up the story in London in 1944. Though narrating in a slightly British accent, Page captures the American cadences and personality of Charles/Claus with all his yearnings and ambivalence, and his Kate, the British-born woman at the heart of the first section, outshines Flosnik's interpretation. Despite the unevenness of the performances, Page's galvanizing narrative makes this well-researched historical novel worth sticking with. A Houghton Mifflin Harcourt hardcover (Reviews, Apr. 27 ). (June)