
An Honest Living
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $15.75
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Ari Fliakos
-
By:
-
Dwyer Murphy
About this listen
“Like the best noir practitioners, Murphy uses the mystery as scaffolding to assemble a world of fallen dreams and doom-bitten characters . . . Murphy’s hard-boiled rendering of the city is nothing short of exquisite . . . For anyone who wants a portrait of this New York, few recent books have conjured it so vividly.”—The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice
• A Best Book of the Year from The New Yorker, LitHub, CrimeReads, and more!
A sharp and stylish debut from the editor-in-chief of CrimeReads in which an unwitting private eye gets caught up in a crime of obsession between a reclusive literary superstar and her bookseller husband, paying homage to the noir genre just as smartly as it reinvents it
After leaving behind the comforts and the shackles of a prestigious law firm, a restless attorney makes ends meet in mid-2000s Brooklyn by picking up odd jobs from a colorful assortment of clients. When a mysterious woman named Anna Reddick turns up at his apartment with ten thousand dollars in cash and asks him to track down her missing husband Newton, an antiquarian bookseller who she believes has been pilfering rare true crime volumes from her collection, he trusts it will be a quick and easy case. But when the real Anna Reddick—a magnetic but unpredictable literary prodigy—lands on his doorstep with a few bones to pick, he finds himself out of his depth, drawn into a series of deceptions involving Joseph Conrad novels, unscrupulous booksellers, aspiring flâneurs, and seedy real estate developers.
Set against the backdrop of New York at the tail end of the analog era and immersed in the worlds of literature and bookselling, An Honest Living is a gripping story of artistic ambition, obsession, and the small crimes we commit against one another every day.
©2022 Dwyer Murphy (P)2022 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Local
- A Legal Thriller
- By: Joey Hartstone
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The town of Marshall, Texas, is the epicenter of intellectual property law in the US—renowned for its speedy trials and massive payouts. One of its best lawyers is James Euchre. His newest client, Amir Zawar, is a CEO forced to defend his life’s work against a patent infringement claim. But when a beloved hometown hero is murdered, all signs point to Zawar, an outsider with no alibi. With the help of a former federal prosecutor and a local PI, Euchre hopes to uncover the truth. In his first criminal case, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
-
-
Excellent legal thriller
- By Gypsy Wife on 06-30-22
By: Joey Hartstone
-
Even the Darkest Night
- A Terra Alta Novel
- By: Javier Cercas, Anne McLean - translator
- Narrated by: Lee Osorio
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Melchor, the son of a prostitute, went to prison as a teenager, convicted of working for a Colombian drug cartel. Behind bars, he read a book that changed his life: Les Misérables. Then his mother was murdered. He decided to become a cop. This new case, in Terra Alta, a remote region of rural Catalonia—the murder of a wealthy local man and his wife—will turn Melchor’s life upside down yet again.
-
-
Amazing
- By Tyler on 04-25-24
By: Javier Cercas, and others
-
The Secret Hours
- By: Mick Herron
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two years ago, a hostile Prime Minister launched the Monochrome inquiry, investigating "historical over-reaching" by the British Secret Service “to investigate historical over-reaching.” Monochrome’s mission was to ferret out any hint of misconduct by any MI5 officer—and allowed Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle, the two civil servants seconded to the project, unfettered access to any and all confidential information in the Service archives in order to do so. But MI5’s formidable First Desk did not become Britain’s top spy by accident, and she has successfully thwarted the inquiry at every turn.
-
-
Just about perfect
- By June Lapidow on 09-28-23
By: Mick Herron
-
The Lemon
- A Novel
- By: S. E. Boyd
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While filming on location in Belfast, Northern Ireland, John Doe, the universally adored host of the culinary travel show Last Call, is found dead in a hotel room in an apparent suicide. As the news of his untimely demise breaks stateside, a group of friends, fixers, hustlers, and opportunists vie to seize control of the narrative: Doe’s chess-master of an agent Nia, ready to call in every favor she is owed to preserve his legacy; down-on-her-luck journalist Katie, who fabricates a story about Doe to save her job at a failing website.
-
-
Fliakos knocks it out of the park!
- By LeiLani Q. on 09-22-23
By: S. E. Boyd
-
A Line in the Sand
- A Novel
- By: Kevin Powers
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One early morning on a Norfolk beach in Virginia, a dead body is discovered by a man taking his daily swim—Arman Bajalan, formerly an interpreter in Iraq. After narrowly surviving an assassination attempt that killed his wife and child, Arman has been given lonely sanctuary in the US as a maintenance worker at the Sea Breeze Motel. Now, convinced that the body is connected to his past, he knows he is still not safe.
-
-
A preposterous bloodbath
- By David Benjamin on 07-06-23
By: Kevin Powers
-
Reykjavík
- A Crime Story
- By: Ragnar Jónasson, Katrín Jakobsdóttir
- Narrated by: Bert Seymour, Tamaryn Payne
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Iceland, 1956. Fourteen-year-old Lára decides to spend the summer working for a couple on the small island of Videy, just off the coast of Reykjavík. In early August, the girl disappears without a trace. Time passes, and the mystery becomes Iceland‘s most infamous unsolved case. What happened to the young girl? Is she still alive? Did she leave the island, or did something happen to her there? Thirty years later, as the city of Reykjavík celebrates its 200th anniversary, journalist Valur Robertsson begins his own investigation into Lára's case.
-
-
Better than expected
- By Shopper on 11-18-23
By: Ragnar Jónasson, and others
-
The Local
- A Legal Thriller
- By: Joey Hartstone
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The town of Marshall, Texas, is the epicenter of intellectual property law in the US—renowned for its speedy trials and massive payouts. One of its best lawyers is James Euchre. His newest client, Amir Zawar, is a CEO forced to defend his life’s work against a patent infringement claim. But when a beloved hometown hero is murdered, all signs point to Zawar, an outsider with no alibi. With the help of a former federal prosecutor and a local PI, Euchre hopes to uncover the truth. In his first criminal case, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
-
-
Excellent legal thriller
- By Gypsy Wife on 06-30-22
By: Joey Hartstone
-
Even the Darkest Night
- A Terra Alta Novel
- By: Javier Cercas, Anne McLean - translator
- Narrated by: Lee Osorio
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Melchor, the son of a prostitute, went to prison as a teenager, convicted of working for a Colombian drug cartel. Behind bars, he read a book that changed his life: Les Misérables. Then his mother was murdered. He decided to become a cop. This new case, in Terra Alta, a remote region of rural Catalonia—the murder of a wealthy local man and his wife—will turn Melchor’s life upside down yet again.
-
-
Amazing
- By Tyler on 04-25-24
By: Javier Cercas, and others
-
The Secret Hours
- By: Mick Herron
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two years ago, a hostile Prime Minister launched the Monochrome inquiry, investigating "historical over-reaching" by the British Secret Service “to investigate historical over-reaching.” Monochrome’s mission was to ferret out any hint of misconduct by any MI5 officer—and allowed Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle, the two civil servants seconded to the project, unfettered access to any and all confidential information in the Service archives in order to do so. But MI5’s formidable First Desk did not become Britain’s top spy by accident, and she has successfully thwarted the inquiry at every turn.
-
-
Just about perfect
- By June Lapidow on 09-28-23
By: Mick Herron
-
The Lemon
- A Novel
- By: S. E. Boyd
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While filming on location in Belfast, Northern Ireland, John Doe, the universally adored host of the culinary travel show Last Call, is found dead in a hotel room in an apparent suicide. As the news of his untimely demise breaks stateside, a group of friends, fixers, hustlers, and opportunists vie to seize control of the narrative: Doe’s chess-master of an agent Nia, ready to call in every favor she is owed to preserve his legacy; down-on-her-luck journalist Katie, who fabricates a story about Doe to save her job at a failing website.
-
-
Fliakos knocks it out of the park!
- By LeiLani Q. on 09-22-23
By: S. E. Boyd
-
A Line in the Sand
- A Novel
- By: Kevin Powers
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One early morning on a Norfolk beach in Virginia, a dead body is discovered by a man taking his daily swim—Arman Bajalan, formerly an interpreter in Iraq. After narrowly surviving an assassination attempt that killed his wife and child, Arman has been given lonely sanctuary in the US as a maintenance worker at the Sea Breeze Motel. Now, convinced that the body is connected to his past, he knows he is still not safe.
-
-
A preposterous bloodbath
- By David Benjamin on 07-06-23
By: Kevin Powers
-
Reykjavík
- A Crime Story
- By: Ragnar Jónasson, Katrín Jakobsdóttir
- Narrated by: Bert Seymour, Tamaryn Payne
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Iceland, 1956. Fourteen-year-old Lára decides to spend the summer working for a couple on the small island of Videy, just off the coast of Reykjavík. In early August, the girl disappears without a trace. Time passes, and the mystery becomes Iceland‘s most infamous unsolved case. What happened to the young girl? Is she still alive? Did she leave the island, or did something happen to her there? Thirty years later, as the city of Reykjavík celebrates its 200th anniversary, journalist Valur Robertsson begins his own investigation into Lára's case.
-
-
Better than expected
- By Shopper on 11-18-23
By: Ragnar Jónasson, and others
-
All the Sinners Bleed
- A Novel
- By: S. A. Cosby
- Narrated by: Adam Lazarre-White
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. But after years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface. Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes.
-
-
Visceral, gripping, thrilling and entertaining
- By Victor @ theAudiobookBlog dot com on 06-26-23
By: S. A. Cosby
-
On Java Road
- A Novel
- By: Lawrence Osborne
- Narrated by: Michael Obiora
- Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After two decades as a journalist in Hong Kong, ex-pat Englishman Adrian Gyle has very little to show for it. Evenings are whiled away with soup dumplings and tea at Fung Shing, the restaurant downstairs from his home on Java Road, watching the city erupt in violence as pro-democracy demonstrations hit ever closer to home. Watching from the skyrises is Adrian’s old friend Jimmy Tang, the scion of one of Hong Kong’s wealthiest families. Just as Gyle prepares to turn his back on Hong Kong, he finds one last intrigue: Rebecca, a student involved in the protests.
-
-
Another winning novel by Laurence Osborne
- By Reed Ramlow on 09-26-22
By: Lawrence Osborne
-
Everybody Knows
- A Novel
- By: Jordan Harper
- Narrated by: Megan Tusing, William DeMeritt
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to Mae Pruett’s Los Angeles, where “Nobody talks. But everybody whispers.” As a “black-bag” publicist tasked not with letting the good news out but keeping the bad news in, Mae works for one of LA’s most powerful and sought-after crisis PR firms, at the center of a sprawling web of lawyers, PR flaks, and private security firms she calls “The Beast.” They protect the rich and powerful and depraved by any means necessary.
-
-
Dreck!
- By cindy m on 06-09-23
By: Jordan Harper
-
The Return of Faraz Ali
- A Novel
- By: Aamina Ahmad
- Narrated by: Homer Todiwala, Nina Wadia
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Not since childhood has Faraz returned to the Mohalla, in Lahore’s walled inner city, where women continue to pass down the art of courtesan from mother to daughter. But he still remembers the day he was abducted from the home he shared with his mother and sister there, at the direction of his powerful father, who wanted to give him a chance at a respectable life. Now Wajid, once more dictating his fate from afar, has sent Faraz back to Lahore, installing him as head of the Mohalla police station and charging him with a mission: to cover up the violent death of a young girl.
-
-
Awful narration
- By Anonymous User on 04-09-22
By: Aamina Ahmad
-
The Cold, Cold Ground
- Detective Sean Duffy, Book 1
- By: Adrian McKinty
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Northern Ireland, spring 1981. Hunger strikes, riots, power cuts, a homophobic serial killer with a penchant for opera, and a young woman’s suicide that may yet turn out to be murder: on the surface, the events are unconnected, but then things—and people—aren’t always what they seem. Detective Sergeant Duffy is the man tasked with trying to get to the bottom of it all. It’s no easy job—especially when it turns out that one of the victims was involved in the IRA but was last seen discussing business with someone from the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force.
-
-
Listen to this book. You won't be disappointed.
- By Christopher on 01-21-12
By: Adrian McKinty
-
The Plinko Bounce
- By: Martin Clark
- Narrated by: David Aaron Baker, Morgan Hallett
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For seventeen years, small-town public defender Andy Hughes has been underpaid to look after the poor, the addicted, and the unfortunate souls who constantly cycle through the courts, charged with petty crimes. Then, in the summer of 2020, he’s assigned to a grotesque murder case that brings national media focus to rural Patrick County, Virginia—Alicia Benson, the wife of a wealthy businessman, is murdered in her home. The accused killer, Damian Bullins, is a cunning felon with a long history of violence, and he confesses to the police.
-
-
Compelling read
- By Nikki Fortier on 01-17-24
By: Martin Clark
-
Birnam Wood
- A Novel
- By: Eleanor Catton
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A landslide has closed the Korowai Pass on New Zealand’s South Island, cutting off the town of Thorndike and leaving a sizable farm abandoned. The disaster presents an opportunity for Birnam Wood, an undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening collective that plants crops wherever no one will notice. For years, the group has struggled to break even. To occupy the farm at Thorndike would mean a shot at solvency at last. But the enigmatic American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the place.
-
-
Outstanding thriller w/ exceptional character development
- By Bradley T. Collins on 04-21-23
By: Eleanor Catton
-
The Gold Coast
- By: Nelson DeMille
- Narrated by: Christian Rummel, Nelson DeMille
- Length: 21 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Welcome to the fabled Gold Coast, that stretch on the North Shore of Long Island that once held the greatest concentration of wealth and power in America. Here two men are destined for an explosive collision: John Sutter, Wall Street lawyer, holding fast to a fading aristocratic legacy; and Frank Bellarosa, the Mafia don who seizes his piece of the staid and unprepared Gold Coast like a latter-day barbarian chief and draws Sutter and his regally beautiful wife, Susan, into his violent world.
-
-
Unexpectedly Great!
- By Jack C on 11-14-08
By: Nelson DeMille
-
Lowdown Road
- By: Scott Von Doviak
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's the summer of '74 . . . Richard Nixon has resigned from office, CB radios are the hot new thing, and in the great state of Texas two cousins hatch a plan to drive $1 million worth of stolen weed to Idaho, where some lunatic is gearing up to jump Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered motorcycle. But with a vengeful sheriff on their tail and the revered and feared marijuana kingpin of Central Texas out to get his stash back, Chuck and Dean are in for the ride of their lives—if they can make it out alive . . .
-
-
hmm... what have I been sold?
- By Joe on 12-24-23
By: Scott Von Doviak
-
The Lost Kings
- A Novel
- By: Tyrell Johnson
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jeanie’s whole world is turned upside down. Not only has she lost her beloved brother, but with no family left in Washington, she is ripped from everything she knows, including Maddox, the boy she could be learning to love. Twenty years later, Jeanie is in England. She keeps her demons at bay by drinking too much, sleeping with a married man, and speaking to a therapist she doesn’t respect. But her old life catches up to her when Maddox reappears, claiming to have tracked down her dad.
-
-
WTH did I just listen too!
- By F. on 09-06-23
By: Tyrell Johnson
-
Shrines of Gaiety
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Jason Watkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1926, and in a country still recovering from the Great War, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. In the clubs of Soho, peers of the realm rub shoulders with starlets, foreign dignitaries with gangsters, and girls sell dances for a shilling a time. The notorious queen of this glittering world is Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven, whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie’s empire faces threats from without and within.
-
-
Rich characters of all stripes
- By Glorious Lorius on 11-09-22
By: Kate Atkinson
-
Sleepwalk
- A Novel
- By: Dan Chaon
- Narrated by: John Pirhalla
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sleepwalk’s hero, Will Bear, is a man with so many aliases that he simply thinks of himself as the Barely Blur. At 50 years old, he’s been living off the grid for over half his life. He’s never had a real job, never paid taxes, never been in a committed relationship.
-
-
Excellent and Unique
- By Clinton on 08-20-22
By: Dan Chaon
Critic reviews
“It is precisely style and atmosphere that give An Honest Living so much electricity and dimension. Like the best noir practitioners, Murphy uses the mystery as scaffolding to assemble a world of fallen dreams and doom bitten characters . . . Murphy’s hard-boiled rendering of the city is nothing short of exquisite . . . For anyone who wants a portrait of this New York, few recent books have conjured it so vividly. For those who demand a straightforward mystery without any humor, romance and ambience, well, forget it, Jake, it’s literature.”—The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice
“Set amid New York’s rare-book trade, this slow-burning début crime novel is also an atmospheric homage to the film Chinatown.”—The New Yorker
“Murphy’s engrossing debut is a book made for summer reading. It’s a smart, leisurely read, richly layered with movie references and philosophical reflections.”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune
The beginning of the story was very engaging and the reading had a great tone and pace.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Promising start, failed to deliver
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A noir homage. Or maybe pastiche. You decide.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great writing!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A True Noir
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Dud
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The narration is excellent, nicely paced and moderated, with just the right combination of warmth and irony.
This is a great first venture into crime noir for the author, and i hope there will be sequels to come.
A thoroughly enjoyable listen
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Very enjoyable
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great narrator no plot
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Disappointing
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.