cover image Frozen Fire

Frozen Fire

Bill Evans, Marianna Jameson, , read by Peter Larkin. . Macmillan Audio, $39.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-1-4272-0750-0

Meteorologist Evans and technical writer Jameson have fashioned a sprawling techno-thriller involving a nutty billionaire who plans to profit by extracting poisonous methane from under the ocean floor and even nuttier ecoterrorists who want to release it into the water and atmosphere and kill everybody. The scientific and technological aspects of the yarn are sufficiently credible, but the prose and character development is amateurish and clumsy. Peter Larkin might have helped by adding a little light playfulness. Instead he makes things worse by treating the purple prose and tin-ear dialogue as dramatically as if it were Shakespearean. Listeners may find there are worse things than death by poisonous methane. A Forge hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 16). (June)