Sin Killer.

Larry McMurtry, 2002. Read by Alfred Molina 6 tapes 8 hrs. Simon 7 Schuster Audio 0-74352510-8. $35.00. Cardboard, plastic; plot notes. SA *

Versatile stage and screen actor Molina's incredible reading makes this novel outstanding as he voices British, French, German, Canadian, and Native American accents and keeps more than 50 characters in character. His understated tone and perfect pacing bring out the humor, lunacy, terror, resignation, and foolhardy bravery in the bigger-than-life characters and the gravity of the ever-present violence and cruelty of the time. The English, aristocratic, eccentric, entertaining Berrybender family (headed by the richest duke in England) are traveling up the Missouri River in 1832 on a chartered luxury steamboat, primarily to and new wild animals to hunt. All the Duke wishes to do, and does, is shoot, drink, and fornicate. Also on board are Lady Berrybender, their 14 children, a butler, a nursemaid, tutors, a cook, many other staff and hangers-on, New World explorers (some experienced from the Lewis and Clark Expedition), some Native American tribal chiefs on their way home, and a wise, tolerant captain in charge. The story's heroine is Lady Tasmin, at 16 the oldest of the Berrybender children, who is smart, rebellious, and willful. When she meets the rough, taciturn Indian fighter and "sin killer" of the title, Jim Snow, she immediately falls in love with him, and he with her. Various people on board are kidnapped, killed, bullied, and beaten.

This is the first in a proposed series that follows the Berrybenders and their entourage up various American rivers. McMurtry's matter-of-fact telling of the tale and the character of Lady Tasmin will appeal to YAs especially. Lots of longing for sex; earthy language. I hope Molina reads the series.