Dragon Bones.

DRAGON BONES. Lisa See. 2003. Read by Liza Ross. 10 tapes. 12 hrs. ISIS Audiobooks. 0-7531-1875-0. $84.95. Vinyl; plot, reader, author notes. A

This is the third book in a series featuring Chinese government official Liu Hulan and her American husband David Stark. This novel features the building of the Three Gorges Dam, religious fanatics, stolen artifacts, and potential terrorism. Hulan's life is not going well. Her young daughter has died of meningitis and Hulan blames herself but cannot let it go. She and David are slipping apart. Her superior at the Ministry of Public Security sends her and David to the Three Gorges to investigate the death of an archaeologist, hoping that this will reunite the pair. Instead, it involves them with the All-Patriotic Society, led by a shadowy figure bent on stopping the dam project. The Society does not shrink from torture and murder to achieve its ends. Will Hulan and David die deep underground in a musty cave next to the Yangtze River?

Narrator Ross does an admirable job with the many accents in this novel. She must sound convincingly Chinese, American, German, British, and German--and she does. Dragon Bones is a mystery with cultural details that will take its audience inside the China of today. Janet Julian, Grafton, MA

A--Recommended for advanced students and adults. This code help librarian and teachers working in high schools where there are honors and advanced placement students. This also will help extend KLIATT's usefulness in public libraries.