The Silver Swan
John Banville, Benjamin Black, , read by Timothy Dalton. . Macmillan Audio, $34.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-1-4272-0289-5
Black is better known as the Booker Prize–winning author John Banville. Timothy Dalton is better known as the guy who used to play James Bond. Their collaboration on this mystery novel, the second in Black's Quirke series, offers an excellent opportunity for Dalton to flash his acting chops. Dalton's reading is hushed, intense and dramatic, read as if being performed onstage. This risky approach ends up melding perfectly with Black's atmospheric whodunit, with Dalton underscoring the literary quality of the prose. Dalton drops to a whisper nearly every other sentence, but it is the kind of whisper that penetrates the eardrums of even the duffers in the back row of the theater. The acted approach—Dalton playing every role, embodying every voice—is not always perfect, but the partnership between author and narrator is a definite success.
Reviewed on: 04/28/2008
Genre: Audio
Compact Disc - 6 pages - 978-0-230-71313-0
Downloadable Audio - 1 pages - 978-0-7927-5314-8
Hardcover - 344 pages - 978-0-330-45403-2
Hardcover - 290 pages - 978-0-8050-8153-4
Hardcover - 479 pages - 978-1-4104-0766-5
Open Ebook - 304 pages - 978-1-4299-3829-7
Other - 288 pages - 978-0-330-50431-7
Paperback - 320 pages - 978-0-312-42824-2
Paperback - 360 pages - 978-987-04-1054-6
Paperback - 344 pages - 978-0-230-70134-2
