CHOSEN PREY

Just as Sandford (Easy Prey; Sudden Prey) has come to be known as a reliable provider of bestselling thrillers, so Eric Conger—who won a Golden Earphone Award for his reading of the abridged version of Certain Prey—has emerged as the ideal voice for Lucas Davenport, Sandford's wealthy, attractive, easily bored Minnesota deputy police chief, who manages to be a caring friend and lover while watching terrible things happen to those around him—then going out and catching the miscreants responsible for those terrible deeds. Conger deftly brings Sandford's villains to life: a jolly, pipe-smoking art professor and sexual pervert named James Qatar, for example, who first tortures women by turning their images into computerized pornography, and then kills them. Add to that the multifaceted gallery of cop colleagues and current and ex-lovers that Conger skillfully evokes with his vocal talents, and it would be hard to say just who works harder—the writer or the performer. Simultaneous release with the Putnam hardcover (Forecasts, Apr. 23). (May)