Garden of Beasts Audiobook By Jeffery Deaver cover art

Garden of Beasts

A Novel of Berlin 1936

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Garden of Beasts

By: Jeffery Deaver
Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
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About this listen

In the most ingenious and provocative thriller yet from the acclaimed New York Times best-selling 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: prison 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; if he refuses the job, his fate will be Sing Sing and the electric chair.

Paul travels to Germany, takes a room in a boardinghouse 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 48 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 prewar Berlin and steers the story to a breathtaking and wholly unpredictable ending.

©2004 Jeffery Deaver (P)2016 Simon & Schuster
Espionage Historical Fiction International Mystery & Crime Suspense Fiction Exciting
About the Creator - Jeffery Deaver

About the Creator

Jeffery Deaver is an international number-one bestselling author. His books are sold in 150 countries and have been translated into 25 languages. He has served two terms as president of Mystery Writers of America, and was recently named a Grand Master of MWA, whose ranks include Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, Mary Higgins Clark, and Walter Mosley.
The author of 43 novels, three collections of short stories and a nonfiction law book, and a lyricist of a country-western album, he’s received or been shortlisted for dozens of awards. His The Bodies Left Behind was named Novel of the Year by the International Thriller Writers, and his Lincoln Rhyme thriller, The Broken Window, and a stand-alone, Edge, were also nominated for that prize. The Garden of Beasts won the Steel Dagger from the Crime Writers Association in England. He’s also been nominated for eight Edgar Awards by the MWA.
Deaver has been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention, Strand Magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Raymond Chandler Lifetime Achievement Award in Italy
Deaver's most recent works are Hunting Time, a Colter Shaw novel, and The Broken Doll, a four-story collection from Amazon Original Stories. His Shaw novel, The Never Game, will be a CBS Prime-time series later this year.

What listeners say about Garden of Beasts

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Gripping Storyline Unexpected Plot Twists Excellent Narration Compelling Historical Setting Nuanced Accents
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great read

love this one. highly recommend it to anyone good story great characters and play between them. keeps you listing from start to end.

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29 people found this helpful

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Unexpectedly good

It takes me a while to get into war time plots, but this one grabbed me right away. I loved the character of the protagonist, loved even more the German policeman. It really seems unbelievable how ruthless Hitler's régime was, how methodically they tortured even their own citizens.
The narrator was great for the characters.

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Entertaining, suspenseful, no gore!!

Clever, with more plot twists than I was expecting. Like a mystery, you don't know who the bad guys all are or how things will turn out until the very end. I was pleased that there was no torture scenes which is unusual but very welcome for a book set in Nazi Germany. Plenty of horrors just in seeing how easy it was/is to form a fascist government and how people will go along with whatever puts them at the top. The good guys can be bad guys and the bad guys can end up being good guys-- it all depends on their moral compass.

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Outstanding in every respect. Just what I wanted.

There are many great Audible listens. This is the best of 2019 so far.

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A Hitman and the Nazis

Not to be confused with another book I read a few years ago (“In the Garden of Beasts”), “Garden of Beasts” takes its name from the same place, a huge park in the center of Berlin called Tiergarten, literally translated “Garden of Beasts.” This was a fascinating book that weaves actual history and real historical people into a novel of made-up characters. Paul Schumann is an American mobster and hitman whose German parents had used German at home so that Paul was fluent in both English and German. Despite his profession, he has a conscience and believes that he has only killed bad people. He is known for his careful planning that kept him from getting caught, but when his luck runs out, he is offered freedom from prosecution if he will take out Reinhardt Ernst (fictional), the architect of Germany’s pre-war military buildup. Most of the book occurs over 48 hours as he tries to carry out his plot amid the lawlessness of a Germany under the Third Reich with the legitimate police vying with other security and paramilitary organizations who have unbridled authority to enforce the will of the Nazi party. Schumann takes a room in a boarding house just before the opening days of the 1936 Berlin Olympics (Yes, he meets Jesse Owen) and things begin to go wrong from the beginning so that he becomes also the hunted. The story jumps back and forth between Schumann and the detective hot on his trail, resulting in a plot that is engaging and mesmerizing. In addition, things are not always as they seem and subplots and intrigue continue to move the story along. It is hard to find a good place to stop reading when it’s time to do some real work. I thoroughly enjoyed the mixing of fiction with real historical events and people. Highly recommended.

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Well crafted....very enjoyable.

One of the better books I've listened to in a long while. You won't be wasting your credit....I promise!

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Wow! Outstanding!!!

Great book! Lots of intrigue. Lots of history. Interesting twists and turns! Great narrator! Highly recommend it.

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Great spy thriller

I couldn’t stop reading. The setting and the character development is great. Berlin in the mid-thirties. A spy with an order to kill.... I enjoyed every minute and every twist and turn in the plot. The last few chapters felt a bit rushed, otherwise my kind of story.

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MOVIE MATERIAL!

Truly enjoyed this book. Bought it on a daily deal. Trusted the prior reviews. Reviews proved correct. Our hero in this book is a regular "McGyver!" Apologize for missspell of name.

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Good Read

I believe it presents an accurate view of pre-war Nazi Germany. Worth pondering in our current PC culture.

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