Children of Wrath

In Grossman's latest, Willi Kraus is a Jewish war hero-turned police detective living in Berlin in 1929, facing Aryan intolerance, and pursuing an unbelievably loathsome serial killer -- Die Kinderfresser, or the Child-Eater of Berlin -- with more hindrance than help from his superiors. Narrator Klye Munley, with his deep, growl of a voice, chooses not to merely create simple accents for the book's characters. Instead he produces collection of well-rendered characters and distinctive voices, ranging from the arrogant and aristocratic to the thoughtful and fearful. But there is a bit of a down side to his enthusiastic performance. Some of Munley's enactments of the book's more intense moments -- the discovery of a new child victim or Kraus's fight to the finish with one of the villains -- come across as artificial and melodramatic. A St. Martin's hardcover. (Apr.)