The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

From AudioFile Magazine:
Simon Vance reads the brief frame story of James’s novella; Vanessa Benjamin narrates the story itself, told by a governess who believes the evil ghosts of a former governess and servant stalk the young children in her charge. Both narrators are skilled and capable, and render James’s complex prose as clearly as it would be on the page, if not more so. Benjamin conveys the classic question of the governess’s reliability by making her voice pleasant and reasonable yet increasingly self-justifying and high-strung. However, her lower-class accent for the estate’s housekeeper is too broad, and the accent she gives the children seems oddly coarse. But through her narration the eerie, claustrophobic effect of James’s tale is heightened—just what a good audiobook should do. W.M. 2010 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2009