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Show nHaMBSaPtOKMNMWaOiKaD Great summer listening for the beach and beyond a place that dehumanizes guards and inmates alike, where tedium and terror, brutality and boredom fill every day. Conover, who reads with the natural ease of a professional actor, weaves a skillful history of Sing Sing and our sadly malfunctioning prison system into his narrative. BY SUKEY HOWARD Ave Maria Mulligan, local pharmacist, local drama director, unmarried at 35, and determinedly independent, is the lovable heroine of Adriana Trigianis lovable novel. Big Stone Gap, which she reads in a truly authentic Big Stone Gap voice. Its a sweet story with some welcome rough edges, set in a wonderfully oddball Southern town a story of a good woman who finally finds her past, her way to the future, and the everyday joy of living and loving in the present. (Random House Audiobooks, $25, ISBN 0375409475) j tion against a handsome young new-- i comer whose politics are to the right of Rush and whose tactics would please Joe McCarthy. Can the senator keep his honor and get his girl? Stay tuned to Anthony Healds wonderfully engaging performance and have a great time finding out. The ties that bind Election fear What makes us family? What gives us identity? Most of us don't have to ponder these questions, but for the main characters in Rosellen Brow n's Half a Heart (Simon & Schuster Audio, $25, ISBN 0743505794), they are necessary and difficult. Miriam has lived a life of privileged comfort as wife and mother in a swank part of Houston. Now, 7 years after she gave up her first child to the militant black professor with whom she had a passionate love -affair, she desperately wants to see that daughter and somehow make up for all that lost time and lost love. She finds Ronnee, 18, on her way to college. As they face each other, they face some very heavy problems and, ultimately, their own elusive feelings about truth and The road to the White House in Stuart Woodss latest thriller. The Run belonging. Weighty circumstances and weighty problems, but a totally moving and involving story, performed with strength and subtlety by Jayne Atkinson and LisaGay Hamilton. (HarperAudio, unabridged. $34.95. ISBN 0694523186; abridged. $25. ISBN 0694522678) is a lot bumpier. And for Will Lee, the good senator from Georgia and hero of Woods's past bestsellers, it could be lethal. The political jungle is teeming with guys who want Will to lose his bid for the Democratic nomination and some w ho want him to lose his life. As Will forges his way down the campaign trail, the covert plots to undermine his candidacy begin to take shape and take aim and, no matter what your own political leaning is, you'll be rooting for him. Jonathan Maroszs reading of this unabridged audio gets my vote his regional inflections are right on and his delivery of the candidates speeches so convincing that maybe he (with Mr. Woodss backing, of course) ought to take a crack at the real thing. Election year The big house Joe Kleins latest. The Running Mate (BBD Author and journalist Ted Conover believes in being a participant observer," immersing himself in the lives he chronicles. So, when he wanted to write about prison guards, he turned things upside dow n and went up the river" to break into jail. After graduating from the training academy, Conover spent a year as a prison guard or, more cor- rectly, a Corrections Officer. New jack: Audio. $25. ISBN 0553527495), doesn't have sizzle the political-inside- r and the thinly veiled, real-lif- e cast Primary Colors had, but it does have enough insider savvy to give it that extra political pizzazz. Billed as a "political journey, it seemed to me more a contemporary ihi tm nu tm i love story albeit one that L Ul Claim centers on Charlie, an honHUM H 9 orable. likable, somewhat irreverent midwestem senGuarding Sing Sing who is ator (a bit Bob Kerrey-ish?- ) (Brilliance Audio, unabridged. $35.95, ISBN 1567403719; abridged. $24.95, madly in love with Kate, a successful, ISBN 156740913X) is the arresting, woman politiappalled by independent cal scandalmongering. To complicate unsettling account of his rookie year in that infamous maximum security prison, matters, Charlie is running for ;newjack I FrnTr"!' "Z best-sellin- Lucas Davenport is a cool. Porsche-drivinguy, with a great pair of baby blues and the smile of a predator about to eat something nasty, who seems to attract more women than he can handle at any one time. He's also g Si IH Kl MY top-notc- FKAlVaOlRlUTl Ding dong, the . . . THE (Sffl 1 A Prey day C the Deputy Police Chief of WjJ Minneapolis and the star of Easy Prey (Putnam Berkley Audio, $24.95. ISBN 0399146334), the 11th in John Sandford's g series. A sexy supermodel has been strangled, the medias going nuts, and almost as fast as Lucas can get his snazzy coup from zero to 90. the murders start multiplying, the suspect list soars, and the whole scene is awash in sex, drugs, and duplicity. The pace is fast, the suspense high, the reading by Eric But pay attention, with Conger so many names you can lose your way in this Prey fray. i A wed-writte- n, well-rea- d, low-ke- y wed-plotte- d, ticket for dog-da- y mystery is ust the relief. It may be hot out, but Colin Dexter and crime-solvin- g Inspector Morse, his clever, clear-eyeThe 1$ Dead in Wench cool their creation, keep blah-banishi- d, Partners, $29.95, ISBN 1572701307). Morse, in the hospital with a bleeding ulcer, becomes engrossed hi a treatise about a murder rape case that took place over a hundred years ago on the Oxford Canal Pleased at this reprieve from his bedridden boredom, Morse stops ogling the pretty young nurses and starts putting Ms detective skills to work, soon discovering that the author, as wel as the prosecutors of the crime, missed and misinterpreted vital evidence. Determined to set things right, even though the accusers, victims, and perpetrators me afl long font, Morse gets on the case In this classy crime novel, read in perfectly pitched, classy cadences by the author. (Audio wefl-bon- ed ed i j ' j j xTraCTirci 1 |