Panama Fever: The Epic Story of One of the Greatest Human Achievements of All Time--The Building of the Panama Canal

This account of the building of the Panama Canal-an adventure saga, political account and horror story in equal measure-has a workaday sensibility. William Dufris does not boom or simper, and he does little in the way of accents or voices. Instead, he pounds, parries and plods his way through Parker's prose, doing no harm, but not doing the story many favors either. Instead, he pulls back every other sentence or so, reaching for a high point or coming to a sudden halt. The work is solid, but it is hard to feel Dufris's connection to the book. He gamely does his best, but the sum total of his reading is underwhelming. Simultaneous release with the Doubleday hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 5).