Blood Rain, by Michael Dibdin, read by Michael Kitchen (Chivers Audio, 8 tapes, 8 hrs, £15.95 in UK)

Dibdin's Aurelio Zen books often have a surreal spin, none more so than this macabre outing in which the hapless Zen, posted to Sicily for his sins in a previous volume, finds himself on the run from - well, just about everybody. Taut, smart, darkly funny, Blood Rain is shot through with terrific setpieces - check out the chapter in which Zen gets mixed up with a gang of Arsenal fans on a ferry to Malta - and while Michael Kitchen registers at first as a somewhat over-emphatic reader, his beefy tones and self-conscious delivery are guaranteed to keep you awake at all times.