****

A gripping plot provides nail-biting tension in William Fairchild's The Sound Of Murder, which earned prolonged applause from an appreciative audience on Tuesday.

The second in the season of crime thrillers by Talking Scarlet has far more credibility than the first, A Party to Murder, and is superbly projected by director Patric Kearns and a talented cast of six.

Marcus Hutton shows how children's author Charles Norbury is really a scheming sadist, who causes his wife Anne (Corrinne Wicks) to turn to another man for love.

When Charles refuses to divorce her, the lover, Peter Marriott, brilliantly played by the polished Ben Roddy, comes up with a fool-proof plan to murder him. But the author's secretary Miss Forbes (Michelle Morris), who is infatuated with Peter, has a recording of him and Anne hatching their scheme - and blackmails Peter into agreeing to marry her.

Although that seems a bit hard to swallow, the plot is otherwise logical. And the action taking place in 1960 in the Norbury's cottage in Surrey (well designed by David North) is quite acceptable.

Convincing performances by John Hester and Jolyon Young, as the two policemen, help sustain the intrigue and keep viewers riveted throughout.