There was nothing civil about the 15th-century ‘War of the Roses’ for the English throne. The same could be said about the guerilla war waged by Oliver and Barbara Rose over their beloved Washington, D.C. mansion in Warren Adler’s best-selling novel, The War of the Roses. Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner stared in a famous 1989 film adaptation of this 1981 novel, but the film is nothing compared to the newly-released audio version of this delicious black comedy.

Dave Giorgio brings just the right touch to his reading of The War of the Roses. The book gradually gets darker and darker as Oliver and Barbara raise the stakes in their winner-take-all battle over who gets what in their messy divorce. But rather than give the book an over-the-top reading, Giorgio delivers each sentence in a steady, matter-of-fact tone that could also deliver a line like “Once upon a time…” — if this were a Grimm fairy tale about two people seriously determined to kill each other.

Giorgio is smart to take a light approach to the increasingly dark subject matter in the book. If he had tried to oversell his lines and give a heavy-handed performance, the novel would have felt contrived and unbelievable. Instead, Giorgio’s steady, deep voice makes all the ludicrous things the Roses do to drive each other out of the house feel and sound real.

Giorgio’s understated tone enables the audiobook to pack a serious emotional punch. The movie might have strictly been a black comedy, but Adler’s book achieves something more. The disintegration of the Roses themselves and their house almost takes on a horror-like quality.

And yet beneath all the bitter backstabbing, Adler’s book conveys the deep love the Roses still secretly feel for each other. No wonder this book became a worldwide best seller. The War of the Roses taps into our worst fears about lost love and failed marriages, then stylishly serves them up in devilishly delectable mouthfuls for us to savor, one stinging sentence at a time. — Ken Ross