Degree of Guilt

By: Richard North Patterson

Narrated by: Ken Howard

Mary Carelli, one of the most powerful women in TV journalism, is charged with the murder of Mark Ransom, America's most eminent novelist. Her attorney, Christopher Paget, sets out to shock the courtroom with revelations about Ransom as a twisted sexual predator. But as the trial unfolds, it is Paget who will be surprised...by Mary's secret motive for murder...by evidence that Mary is lying...by a woman prosecutor who believes Mary invented the story of rape...and by an enigmatic judge with an agenda of her own....©1992 by Richard North Patterson; (P)1992 by Random House Audio Publishing, Inc., All Rights Reserved Under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions, Reproduced by Arrangement with Random House Audio Publishing, Inc.

Critic reviews

"One intense courtroom clash after another...An intelligent and gripping thriller."
--The Washington Post

A Main Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club

What Happened?

When reading Richard North Patterson I expect a compelling story, one that is detailed with characters the reader cares about. Perhaps Degree of Guilt is all of that and was victimized by the abridgement and the reading by Mr. Howard. I suspect these are the reasons this collaberation did not work for me. Ken Howard's reading left one to wonder if he was bored, or in a rush to be somewhere else. It was clear he didn't care about the story. Is this what they mean when critics use the term "He phoned it in"? His tone never changed throughout the reading and was reminescent of a history professor who was repeating the same lecture for the one hundreth time. Perhaps I'll look at an unabridged version as the story has possibilities.