
The Adversary
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 $20.25
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Mary Lewis
-
By:
-
Michael Crummey
About this listen
WINNER OF THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD
An enthralling novel about the corruption of power and the power of corruption from the award-winning, bestselling author of The Innocents
"POTENT...A VIBRANT HISTORICAL NARRATIVE"—The New Yorker
"A FLAWLESSLY CRAFTED NARRATIVE" —Wall Street Journal
"MASTERPIECE" —Publisher's Weekly (Starred Review)
"CEASELESSLY ENTERTAINING" —Kirkus (Starred Review)
"ONE OF OUR BEST WRITERS" —Booklist (Starred Review)
In an isolated outport on Newfoundland's northern coastline, Abe Strapp is about to marry the daughter of a rival merchant to cement his hold on the shore when the Widow Caines arrives to throw the wedding and Abe's plans into chaos.
That ruthless act of sabotage is the opening salvo in a battle between the man and woman who own Mockbeggar's largest mercantile firms, each fighting for the scarce resources of the north Atlantic fishery, each seeking a measure of revenge on the person they despise most in the world. As their unshakeable animosity spirals further each year into vendettas and violence, the community is increasingly divided and even the innocents in Mockbeggar find themselves forced to take sides, with devastating consequences.
Through merciless seasons of uncertainty and want, through predatory storms and pandemics and marauding privateers, it is the human heart that reveals itself to be the most formidable and unpredictable adversary for each person drawn, inevitably and helplessly, into that endless feud.
Compulsively listenable and uncompromising, The Adversary is a masterful evocation of a lost time, and a shadowed mirror to our modern politics of grievance and retribution.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
We Do Not Part
- A Novel
- By: Han Kang, E. Yaewon - translator, Paige Aniyah Morris - translator
- Narrated by: Greta Jung
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One winter morning, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her at a hospital in Seoul. Inseon has injured herself in an accident, and she begs Kyungha to return to Jeju Island, where she lives, to save her beloved pet—a white bird called Ama. A snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon’s house at all costs, but the icy wind and squalls slow her down as night begins to fall. She wonders if she will arrive in time to save the animal—or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step.
-
-
Powerful, Tough Listen
- By ncnickle on 01-26-25
By: Han Kang, and others
-
Wild Houses
- By: Colin Barrett
- Narrated by: Damian Gildea
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The riotous, raucous, and deeply resonant debut novel from “one of the best story writers in the English language today” (Financial Times), Wild Houses follows two outsiders caught in the crosshairs of a small-town revenge kidnapping gone awry.
-
-
Insider look at a small crime
- By Probably did on 03-24-24
By: Colin Barrett
-
The Maniac
- By: Benjamin Labatut
- Narrated by: Gergo Danka, Eva Magyar
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Benjamín Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World electrified a global readership. A Booker Prize and National Book Award finalist, and one of the New York Times’ Ten Best Books of the Year, it explored the life and thought of a clutch of mathematicians and physicists who took science to strange and sometimes dangerous new realms. In The MANIAC, Labatut has created a tour de force on an even grander scale.
-
-
Gergo Danka and Eva Magyar are excellent narrators
- By Barbara S on 11-04-23
By: Benjamin Labatut
-
Galore
- A Novel
- By: Michael Crummey
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a whale beaches itself on the shore of the remote coastal town of Paradise Deep, the last thing any of the townspeople expect to find inside it is a man, silent and reeking of fish but remarkably alive. The discovery of this mysterious person, soon christened Judah, sets the town scrambling for answers as its most prominent citizens weigh in on whether he is man or beast, blessing or curse, miracle or demon.
-
-
spellbinding
- By Mylrea Estell on 04-18-11
By: Michael Crummey
-
Prophet Song
- By: Paul Lynch
- Narrated by: Gerry O'Brien
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother of four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her step. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police are here to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist. Ireland is falling apart. The country is in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny and when her husband disappears, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a society that is quickly unravelling.
-
-
Painfully powerful Tale.
- By Tom on 01-30-24
By: Paul Lynch
-
Austerlitz
- By: W. G. Sebald
- Narrated by: Richard Matthews
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A small child when he comes to England on a Kindertransport in the summer of 1939, Jacques Austerlitz is told nothing of his real family by the Welsh Methodist minister and his wife who raise him. When he is a much older man, fleeting memories return to him, and obeying an instinct he only dimly understands, Austerlitz follows their trail back to the world he left behind a half century before. There, faced with the void at the heart of twentieth-century Europe, he struggles to rescue his heritage from oblivion.
-
-
To each their own
- By Sebastian Romero on 04-23-20
By: W. G. Sebald
-
We Do Not Part
- A Novel
- By: Han Kang, E. Yaewon - translator, Paige Aniyah Morris - translator
- Narrated by: Greta Jung
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One winter morning, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her at a hospital in Seoul. Inseon has injured herself in an accident, and she begs Kyungha to return to Jeju Island, where she lives, to save her beloved pet—a white bird called Ama. A snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon’s house at all costs, but the icy wind and squalls slow her down as night begins to fall. She wonders if she will arrive in time to save the animal—or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step.
-
-
Powerful, Tough Listen
- By ncnickle on 01-26-25
By: Han Kang, and others
-
Wild Houses
- By: Colin Barrett
- Narrated by: Damian Gildea
- Length: 6 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The riotous, raucous, and deeply resonant debut novel from “one of the best story writers in the English language today” (Financial Times), Wild Houses follows two outsiders caught in the crosshairs of a small-town revenge kidnapping gone awry.
-
-
Insider look at a small crime
- By Probably did on 03-24-24
By: Colin Barrett
-
The Maniac
- By: Benjamin Labatut
- Narrated by: Gergo Danka, Eva Magyar
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Benjamín Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World electrified a global readership. A Booker Prize and National Book Award finalist, and one of the New York Times’ Ten Best Books of the Year, it explored the life and thought of a clutch of mathematicians and physicists who took science to strange and sometimes dangerous new realms. In The MANIAC, Labatut has created a tour de force on an even grander scale.
-
-
Gergo Danka and Eva Magyar are excellent narrators
- By Barbara S on 11-04-23
By: Benjamin Labatut
-
Galore
- A Novel
- By: Michael Crummey
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a whale beaches itself on the shore of the remote coastal town of Paradise Deep, the last thing any of the townspeople expect to find inside it is a man, silent and reeking of fish but remarkably alive. The discovery of this mysterious person, soon christened Judah, sets the town scrambling for answers as its most prominent citizens weigh in on whether he is man or beast, blessing or curse, miracle or demon.
-
-
spellbinding
- By Mylrea Estell on 04-18-11
By: Michael Crummey
-
Prophet Song
- By: Paul Lynch
- Narrated by: Gerry O'Brien
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother of four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find the GNSB on her step. Two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police are here to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist. Ireland is falling apart. The country is in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny and when her husband disappears, Eilish finds herself caught within the nightmare logic of a society that is quickly unravelling.
-
-
Painfully powerful Tale.
- By Tom on 01-30-24
By: Paul Lynch
-
Austerlitz
- By: W. G. Sebald
- Narrated by: Richard Matthews
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A small child when he comes to England on a Kindertransport in the summer of 1939, Jacques Austerlitz is told nothing of his real family by the Welsh Methodist minister and his wife who raise him. When he is a much older man, fleeting memories return to him, and obeying an instinct he only dimly understands, Austerlitz follows their trail back to the world he left behind a half century before. There, faced with the void at the heart of twentieth-century Europe, he struggles to rescue his heritage from oblivion.
-
-
To each their own
- By Sebastian Romero on 04-23-20
By: W. G. Sebald
Critic reviews
ONE OF KIRKUS'S BEST BOOKS OF 2024
"Potent...[a] vibrant historical novel....By turns bawdy, violent, comic, and gruesome."—The New Yorker
"Ingeniously constructed and wound tight as a mainspring...Flawlessly crafted...A sinuous narrative in constant, elegant motion."—The Wall Street Journal
“The Adversary is a beautifully written, immensely powerful and subtly ingenious novel. Its greatest—which is to say, most monstrous—revelations are so discreetly offered that you could miss them; but when you realize them, they practically take your breath away."—The Washington Post
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Innocents
- A Novel
- By: Michael Crummey
- Narrated by: Mary Lewis
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A brother and sister are orphaned in an isolated cove on Newfoundland's northern coastline. Their home is a stretch of rocky shore governed by the feral ocean, by a relentless pendulum of abundance and murderous scarcity. Still children with only the barest notion of the outside world, they have nothing but the family's boat and the little knowledge passed on haphazardly by their mother and father to keep them.
-
-
Amazing
- By Wendy on 02-04-20
By: Michael Crummey
-
Sweetland
- By: Michael Crummey
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The scarcely populated town of Sweetland rests on the shore of a remote Canadian island. Its slow decline finally reaches a head when the mainland government offers each islander a generous resettlement package - the sole stipulation being that everyone must leave. Fierce and enigmatic Moses Sweetland, whose ancestors founded the village, is the only one to refuse. As he watches his neighbors abandon the island, he recalls the town's rugged history and its eccentric cast of characters.
-
-
Excellent story but...
- By Chris Wells on 09-22-15
By: Michael Crummey
-
Heart, Be at Peace
- A Novel
- By: Donal Ryan
- Narrated by: Anne Marie Ryan, Ciaran O'Brien, Donal Ryan, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of the most acclaimed Irish writers today, a new novel about smalltown Ireland that explores a community on the mend and the power of love and trauma to both bring people together and divide them
By: Donal Ryan
-
The 13th Paladin Boxed Set
- Books 1-3
- By: Torsten Weitze, Tim Casey - translator
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 43 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ahren's life consists of being beaten up by his drunkard father or bullied by the village lads. But at the annual suitability tests for apprenticeships, the young boy finds himself selected by Falk, the guardian of the forest, to be his apprentice and his world is turned upside down.
-
-
couple of messed up things to it.
- By Matt on 02-08-22
By: Torsten Weitze, and others
-
Galore
- A Novel
- By: Michael Crummey
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a whale beaches itself on the shore of the remote coastal town of Paradise Deep, the last thing any of the townspeople expect to find inside it is a man, silent and reeking of fish but remarkably alive. The discovery of this mysterious person, soon christened Judah, sets the town scrambling for answers as its most prominent citizens weigh in on whether he is man or beast, blessing or curse, miracle or demon.
-
-
spellbinding
- By Mylrea Estell on 04-18-11
By: Michael Crummey
-
Havoc
- A Novel
- By: Christopher Bollen
- Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eighty-one-year-old widow Maggie Burkhardt came to the Royal Karnak to escape. But not in quite the same way as most other guests who are relaxing at this hotel on the banks of the Nile. Maggie, a compulsive fixer of other people’s lives, may have found herself in hot water at her last hotel in Switzerland and just might have needed to get out of there fast. But here at the Royal Karnak, under the hot Saharan sun, she has a comfortable suite, a loyal confidante in the hotel manager, Ahmed, and a handful of sympathetic friends. One morning, however, Maggie notices a new arrival at check-in.
-
-
Well written but not for animal lovers
- By Erin G on 01-11-25
-
The Innocents
- A Novel
- By: Michael Crummey
- Narrated by: Mary Lewis
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A brother and sister are orphaned in an isolated cove on Newfoundland's northern coastline. Their home is a stretch of rocky shore governed by the feral ocean, by a relentless pendulum of abundance and murderous scarcity. Still children with only the barest notion of the outside world, they have nothing but the family's boat and the little knowledge passed on haphazardly by their mother and father to keep them.
-
-
Amazing
- By Wendy on 02-04-20
By: Michael Crummey
-
Sweetland
- By: Michael Crummey
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The scarcely populated town of Sweetland rests on the shore of a remote Canadian island. Its slow decline finally reaches a head when the mainland government offers each islander a generous resettlement package - the sole stipulation being that everyone must leave. Fierce and enigmatic Moses Sweetland, whose ancestors founded the village, is the only one to refuse. As he watches his neighbors abandon the island, he recalls the town's rugged history and its eccentric cast of characters.
-
-
Excellent story but...
- By Chris Wells on 09-22-15
By: Michael Crummey
-
Heart, Be at Peace
- A Novel
- By: Donal Ryan
- Narrated by: Anne Marie Ryan, Ciaran O'Brien, Donal Ryan, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of the most acclaimed Irish writers today, a new novel about smalltown Ireland that explores a community on the mend and the power of love and trauma to both bring people together and divide them
By: Donal Ryan
-
The 13th Paladin Boxed Set
- Books 1-3
- By: Torsten Weitze, Tim Casey - translator
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 43 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ahren's life consists of being beaten up by his drunkard father or bullied by the village lads. But at the annual suitability tests for apprenticeships, the young boy finds himself selected by Falk, the guardian of the forest, to be his apprentice and his world is turned upside down.
-
-
couple of messed up things to it.
- By Matt on 02-08-22
By: Torsten Weitze, and others
-
Galore
- A Novel
- By: Michael Crummey
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a whale beaches itself on the shore of the remote coastal town of Paradise Deep, the last thing any of the townspeople expect to find inside it is a man, silent and reeking of fish but remarkably alive. The discovery of this mysterious person, soon christened Judah, sets the town scrambling for answers as its most prominent citizens weigh in on whether he is man or beast, blessing or curse, miracle or demon.
-
-
spellbinding
- By Mylrea Estell on 04-18-11
By: Michael Crummey
-
Havoc
- A Novel
- By: Christopher Bollen
- Narrated by: Maggi-Meg Reed
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eighty-one-year-old widow Maggie Burkhardt came to the Royal Karnak to escape. But not in quite the same way as most other guests who are relaxing at this hotel on the banks of the Nile. Maggie, a compulsive fixer of other people’s lives, may have found herself in hot water at her last hotel in Switzerland and just might have needed to get out of there fast. But here at the Royal Karnak, under the hot Saharan sun, she has a comfortable suite, a loyal confidante in the hotel manager, Ahmed, and a handful of sympathetic friends. One morning, however, Maggie notices a new arrival at check-in.
-
-
Well written but not for animal lovers
- By Erin G on 01-11-25
Meandering
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
An excellent performance…an excellent tale.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The language and story line
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A timeless story of the human condition
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Still not really sure what this was about
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.