Garden of Beasts, Jeffery Deaver
10 Rating(s)
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Garden of Beasts
A Novel of Berlin 1936

Narrator: Jefferson Mays

Unabridged: 13 hr 20 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/14/2016


Synopsis

In the most ingenious and provocative thriller yet from acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Jeffery Deaver, a conscience-plagued mobster turned government hitman struggles to find his moral compass amid rampant treachery and betrayal in 1936 Berlin.

Paul Schumann, a German American living in New York City in 1936, is a mobster hitman known as much for his brilliant tactics as for taking only “righteous” assignments. But then Paul gets caught. And the arresting officer offers him a stark choice: execution or covert government service. Paul is asked to pose as a journalist covering the summer Olympics taking place in Berlin. He’s to hunt down and kill Reinhard Ernst—the ruthless architect of Hitler’s clandestine rearmament. If successful, Paul will be pardoned and given the financial means to go legit.

Paul travels to Germany, takes a room in a boarding house near the Tiergarten—the huge park in central Berlin but also, literally, the “Garden of Beasts”—and begins his hunt. In classic Deaver fashion, the next forty-eight hours are a feverish cat-and-mouse chase, as Paul stalks Ernst through Berlin while a dogged Berlin police officer and the entire Third Reich apparatus search frantically for the American.

Garden of Beasts is packed with fascinating period detail and features a cast of perfectly realized locals, Olympic athletes, and senior Nazi officials—some real, some fictional. With hairpin plot twists, the reigning “master of ticking-bomb suspense” (People) plumbs the nerve-jangling paranoia of pre-war Berlin and steers the story to a breathtaking and wholly unpredictable ending.

The novel won the Steel Dagger award for best espionage thriller of the year from the prestigious Crime Writers’ Associate in the United Kingdom.

Author Bio

Chicago born author, Jeffery Deaver, has been richly rewarded for his successful career as a an American mystery/crime writer, including being a three-time Ellery Queen Reader's Award winner, and several different newspaper best of lists around the world.

Lincoln Rhyme, a quadriplegic detective is the main character in his most popular series of novels, such as The Broken Window. His time spent practicing law before he embarked on his writing career definitely gave him greater insight into the cases about which he writes.

He was writing about criminal hackers in his 2001 book, The Blue Nowhere. He also established a computer crime unit within the pages of the book. Several of his novels have been adapted for tv and movies. The most popular among them would be The Bone Collector, starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie.

Deaver was chosen to write an official James Bond novel, Carter Blanche, published on May 25, 2011, making him the second American author to participate in the series.

Reviews

AudiobooksNow review by Lee on 2007-07-10 11:31:08

This was an interesting story with some history thrown in. I like the characters and the way they interacted with each other. I thought I knew what was going on but with the slight twists keep me listening as it unfolded. Several times I had to stay in my vehicle until I got to a stopping point. Deaver is a master. The narration was pleasant to listen to. Good book.