The Man from Beijing
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 $22.50
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Rosalyn Landor
About this listen
The acclaimed author of the Kurt Wallander mysteries, writing at the height of his powers, now gives us an electrifying stand-alone global thriller.
January 2006. In the Swedish hamlet of Hesjvallen, nineteen people have been massacred. The only clue is a red ribbon found at the scene.
Judge Birgitta Roslin has particular reason to be shocked: Her grandparents, the Andrns, are among the victims, and Birgitta soon learns that an Andrn family in Nevada has also been murdered. She then discovers the 19th-century diary of an Andrn ancestora gang master on the American transcontinental railwaythat describes brutal treatment of Chinese slave workers. The police insist that only a lunatic could have committed the Hesjvallen murders, but Birgitta is determined to uncover what she now suspects is a more complicated truth.
The investigation leads to the highest echelons of power in present-day Beijing, and to Zimbabwe and Mozambique. But the narrative also takes us back 150 years into the depths of the slave trade between China and the United Statesa history that will ensnare Birgitta as she draws ever closer to solving the Hesjvallen murders.
©2010 Henning Mankell (P)2010 Random HouseListeners also enjoyed...
-
Faceless Killers
- A Kurt Wallander Mystery
- By: Henning Mankell, Steven T. Murray - translator
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was a crime of senseless violence. On a cold night in a remote Swedish farmhouse, an elderly farmer was bludgeoned to death, his wife left to die with a noose around her neck. As if this didn't present enough problems for Ystad police inspector Kurt Wallander, the dying woman's last word, his only tangible clue, were foreign. If publicized, they could be the match that would inflame Sweden's already smoldering anti-immigrant sentiments.
-
-
A new favorite detective series!
- By Joanna on 09-03-10
By: Henning Mankell, and others
-
After the Fire
- By: Henning Mankell, Marlaine Delargy - translator
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fredrik Welin is a former surgeon who retired in disgrace decades earlier to a tiny island on which he is the only resident. He has a daughter he rarely sees, and his mailman, Jansson, is the closest thing he has to a friend and to an adversary. He is perfectly content to live out his days in quiet solitude. One autumn evening, he is startled awake by a blinding light - only to discover that his house is on fire. With the help of Jansson, he escapes the flames just in time wearing two left boots.
-
-
An interesting view of life, aging and death
- By Barbara Dumas on 12-01-17
By: Henning Mankell, and others
-
Kennedy’s Brain
- A Novel
- By: Henning Mankell
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Archaeologist Louise Cantor returns home to Sweden, and makes a devastating discovery: her only child, twenty-eight-year-old Henrik, dead in his bed. The police rule his death a suicide, but she knows he was murdered; her quest to find out what really happened to Henrik takes her across the globe to Barcelona, where her son kept a secret apartment; Sydney, Australia, to find Aron, her estranged ex-husband and Henrik's father; and to Maputo, Mozambique, where she learns the awful truth behind an AIDS hospice.
-
-
Not sure what I listened to
- By AnotherJim on 11-02-24
By: Henning Mankell
-
Depths
- A Novel
- By: Henning Mankell
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
October, 1914. Swedish naval officer Lars Tobiasson-Svartman is charged with a secret mission to take depth readings around the Stockholm archipelago. In the course of his work, he lands on the rocky isle of Halsskär. It seems utterly inhabitable, yet Halsskär is home to the young widow Sara Fredrika. Lars soon learns that Sara, living in near-total isolation, is unaware that the world is at war.
-
-
A different kind of story from Henning Mankell
- By Thomas Le Min on 10-30-24
By: Henning Mankell
-
The Eye of the Leopard
- A Novel
- By: Henning Mankell
- Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hans Olofson arrives in Zambia not long after independence, hoping to fulfill the missionary dream of his friend Janice. He is also fleeing the traumas of his motherless childhood: his father's alcoholism, his best friend's terrible accident, Janice's death, his fear of an ordinary and stifled fate. Africa is a terrible shock, yet he stays and makes it his home. But he never fully comes to understand his place as a mzungu, a wealthy white man among native blacks, and the fragile truce between them.
-
-
The best description of Africa and the comparison with the white race.
- By Lorraine de Blanche on 03-29-24
By: Henning Mankell
-
The Return of the Dancing Master
- By: Henning Mankell
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stefan Lindman, a young police officer recently diagnosed with mouth cancer, decides to investigate the murder of his former colleague, but is soon enmeshed in a mystifying case with no witnesses and no apparent motives. Terrified of the disease that could take his life, Lindman becomes more and more reckless as he unearths the chilling links between Molin's death and an underground neo-Nazi network that runs further and deeper than he could ever have imagined.
-
-
Good history, great writing
- By Ann L Omae on 03-12-09
By: Henning Mankell
-
Faceless Killers
- A Kurt Wallander Mystery
- By: Henning Mankell, Steven T. Murray - translator
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was a crime of senseless violence. On a cold night in a remote Swedish farmhouse, an elderly farmer was bludgeoned to death, his wife left to die with a noose around her neck. As if this didn't present enough problems for Ystad police inspector Kurt Wallander, the dying woman's last word, his only tangible clue, were foreign. If publicized, they could be the match that would inflame Sweden's already smoldering anti-immigrant sentiments.
-
-
A new favorite detective series!
- By Joanna on 09-03-10
By: Henning Mankell, and others
-
After the Fire
- By: Henning Mankell, Marlaine Delargy - translator
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fredrik Welin is a former surgeon who retired in disgrace decades earlier to a tiny island on which he is the only resident. He has a daughter he rarely sees, and his mailman, Jansson, is the closest thing he has to a friend and to an adversary. He is perfectly content to live out his days in quiet solitude. One autumn evening, he is startled awake by a blinding light - only to discover that his house is on fire. With the help of Jansson, he escapes the flames just in time wearing two left boots.
-
-
An interesting view of life, aging and death
- By Barbara Dumas on 12-01-17
By: Henning Mankell, and others
-
Kennedy’s Brain
- A Novel
- By: Henning Mankell
- Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Archaeologist Louise Cantor returns home to Sweden, and makes a devastating discovery: her only child, twenty-eight-year-old Henrik, dead in his bed. The police rule his death a suicide, but she knows he was murdered; her quest to find out what really happened to Henrik takes her across the globe to Barcelona, where her son kept a secret apartment; Sydney, Australia, to find Aron, her estranged ex-husband and Henrik's father; and to Maputo, Mozambique, where she learns the awful truth behind an AIDS hospice.
-
-
Not sure what I listened to
- By AnotherJim on 11-02-24
By: Henning Mankell
-
Depths
- A Novel
- By: Henning Mankell
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
October, 1914. Swedish naval officer Lars Tobiasson-Svartman is charged with a secret mission to take depth readings around the Stockholm archipelago. In the course of his work, he lands on the rocky isle of Halsskär. It seems utterly inhabitable, yet Halsskär is home to the young widow Sara Fredrika. Lars soon learns that Sara, living in near-total isolation, is unaware that the world is at war.
-
-
A different kind of story from Henning Mankell
- By Thomas Le Min on 10-30-24
By: Henning Mankell
-
The Eye of the Leopard
- A Novel
- By: Henning Mankell
- Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hans Olofson arrives in Zambia not long after independence, hoping to fulfill the missionary dream of his friend Janice. He is also fleeing the traumas of his motherless childhood: his father's alcoholism, his best friend's terrible accident, Janice's death, his fear of an ordinary and stifled fate. Africa is a terrible shock, yet he stays and makes it his home. But he never fully comes to understand his place as a mzungu, a wealthy white man among native blacks, and the fragile truce between them.
-
-
The best description of Africa and the comparison with the white race.
- By Lorraine de Blanche on 03-29-24
By: Henning Mankell
-
The Return of the Dancing Master
- By: Henning Mankell
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stefan Lindman, a young police officer recently diagnosed with mouth cancer, decides to investigate the murder of his former colleague, but is soon enmeshed in a mystifying case with no witnesses and no apparent motives. Terrified of the disease that could take his life, Lindman becomes more and more reckless as he unearths the chilling links between Molin's death and an underground neo-Nazi network that runs further and deeper than he could ever have imagined.
-
-
Good history, great writing
- By Ann L Omae on 03-12-09
By: Henning Mankell
-
Quicksand
- What It Means to Be a Human Being
- By: Henning Mankell, Laurie Thompson - translator, Marlaine DeLargy - translator
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In January 2014 I was informed that I had cancer. However, Quicksand is not a book about death and destruction but about what it means to be human. I have undertaken a journey from my childhood to the man I am today, writing about the key events in my life and about the people who have given me new perspectives. About men and women I have never met but wish I had. I write about love and jealousy, about courage and fear. And about what it is like to live with a potentially fatal illness.
By: Henning Mankell, and others
-
Jar City
- By: Arnaldur Indridason
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gold Dagger Award winner Arnaldur Indridason’s novels featuring Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson became international sensations on their way to selling millions of copies worldwide. The debut of morose detective Sveinsson finds the inspector and his team delving into the murder of a retiree with horrifying secrets.
-
-
Cerebral Police Procedural
- By Aaron on 09-14-13
-
An Accidental Death
- A DC Smith Investigation Series, Book 1
- By: Peter Grainger
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story opens with the apparently accidental drowning of a sixth form student in the Norfolk countryside. As a matter of routine, or so it seems, the case passes across the desk of Detective Sergeant Smith, recently returned to work after an internal investigation into another case that has led to tensions between officers at Kings Lake police headquarters. As an ex-DCI, Smith could have retired by now, and it is clear that some of his superiors wish that he would do so.
-
-
Excellent British Mystery
- By Customer on 09-07-16
By: Peter Grainger
-
The Keeper of Lost Causes
- Department Q, Book 1
- By: Jussi Adler-Olsen
- Narrated by: Erik Davies
- Length: 15 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Carl Mørck used to be one of Denmark’s best homicide detectives. Then a hail of bullets destroyed the lives of two fellow cops, and Carl - who didn’t draw his weapon - blames himself. So a promotion is the last thing he expects. But Department Q is a department of one, and Carl’s got only a stack of cold cases for company. His colleagues snicker, but Carl may have the last laugh, because one file keeps nagging at him: A liberal politician vanished five years earlier and is presumed dead. But she isn’t dead...yet.
-
-
Dark, Cold, and Danish
- By Ted on 11-28-12
-
The Fireground
- By: Dervla McTiernan
- Narrated by: Ben Chapple, Harriet Gordon-Anderson
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Flynn was only a teenager when her parents were killed in a terrible accident. Too young to lose her parents, too young to take on responsibility for her younger sister Kaiya, too young to protect Kaiya from the harshness of their new lives in the following years. Desperate to help her sister, Flynn reaches out to Willa Tomlinson, a grief counsellor renowned for helping her patients cope with profound loss. Under Willa’s influence and care, Kaiya finally seems to turn a corner, joining the climate action collective that Willa leads.
-
-
Just what I needed
- By Grape_Ape on 12-11-23
By: Dervla McTiernan
-
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
- A Lisbeth Salander Novel
- By: Stieg Larsson, Reg Keeland - translator
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 16 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.
-
-
A Classic Mystery with Wonderful Characters
- By Robert on 12-22-08
By: Stieg Larsson, and others
-
Songbird
- Kings Lake Investigation Series, Book 1
- By: Peter Grainger
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 15 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Detective Sergeant Chris Waters got the call at 05.29 that July morning. This is it, said DCI Reeve, you'll be first there, it's all yours, you're the crime scene manager. Suddenly, after months of waiting and wondering, Waters finds himself in at the deep end, and alone at the scene of a puzzling murder. As the investigation proceeds, the detectives at Kings Lake Central find themselves visiting familiar places and talking to some familiar faces, while old enmities reappear in the incident room. Before this is over, Chris Waters will need to make a career-changing decision.
-
-
Loved it...
- By Kelly on 09-20-19
By: Peter Grainger
-
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
-
Mr. Texas
- A Novel
- By: Lawrence Wright
- Narrated by: Steven Weber, Lawrence Wright
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sonny Lamb is an affable, if floundering, rancher with the unfortunate habit of becoming a punchline in his Texas hometown. Most recently, to everyone’s headshaking amusement, he bought his own bull at an auction. But when a fire breaks out at a neighbor’s farm, Sonny makes headlines in another way: not waiting for help, he bolts to the farm where his heroic actions make the evening news.
-
-
Fun listen and a great story
- By Roberta Weadley on 10-12-23
By: Lawrence Wright
-
The Shadow District
- By: Arnaldur Indridason
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A 90-year-old man is found dead in his bed, smothered with his own pillow. On his desk, the police find newspaper cuttings about a murder case dating from the Second World War, when a young woman was found strangled behind Reykjavik's National Theatre. Konrad, a former detective, is bored with retirement and remembers the crime. He grew up in "the shadow district", a rough neighborhood bordered by the National Theatre. Why would someone be interested in that crime now?
-
-
A slow burn!
- By Rosemary Wells on 12-12-17
-
Angels and Demons
- By: Dan Brown
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 18 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
World-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a cryptic symbol seared into the chest of a murdered physicist. What he discovers is unimaginable: a deadly vendetta against the Catholic Church by a centuries-old underground organization, the Illuminati. Desperate to save the Vatican from a powerful time bomb, Langdon joins forces in Rome with the beautiful and mysterious scientist Vittoria Vetra.
-
-
A must for fans of The Da Vinci Code
- By Geoffrey on 04-14-04
By: Dan Brown
-
Italian Shoes
- By: Henning Mankell
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With more than 30 million copies of his works published, in 37 languages, award-winning author Henning Mankell may be Sweden's most accomplished novelist. Here he crafts the icy, atmospheric tale of Fredrik Welin, a disgraced surgeon living in exile on a small island. When Fredrik receives a surprise visit from a lover he abandoned decades earlier, he begins the difficult road to redemption.
-
-
Nothing like Kurt Wallander
- By Pamela on 10-18-12
By: Henning Mankell
Related to this topic
-
Jar City
- By: Arnaldur Indridason
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gold Dagger Award winner Arnaldur Indridason’s novels featuring Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson became international sensations on their way to selling millions of copies worldwide. The debut of morose detective Sveinsson finds the inspector and his team delving into the murder of a retiree with horrifying secrets.
-
-
Cerebral Police Procedural
- By Aaron on 09-14-13
-
Babylon Berlin
- Gereon Rath, Book 1
- By: Volker Kutscher
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Berlin, 1929. Detective Inspector Rath was a successful career officer in the Cologne Homicide Division before a shooting incident in which he inadvertently killed a man. He has been transferred to the vice squad in Berlin, a job he detests even though he finds a new friend in his boss, Chief Inspector Wolter. There is seething unrest in the city, and the Commissioner of Police has ordered the vice squad to ruthlessly enforce the ban on May Day demonstrations.
-
-
It's no Bernie Gunther Mystery ...
- By Brian English on 01-28-18
By: Volker Kutscher
-
Pietr the Latvian
- Inspector Maigret, Book 1
- By: Georges Simenon, David Bellos - translator
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first audiobook which appeared in Georges Simenon's famous Maigret series, in a gripping new translation by David Bellos.Inevitably Maigret was a hostile presence in the Majestic. He constituted a kind of foreign body that the hotel's atmosphere could not assimilate. Not that he looked like a cartoon policeman. He didn't have a moustache and he didn't wear heavy boots. His clothes were well cut and made of fairly light worsted. He shaved every day and looked after his hands. But his frame was proletarian. He was a big, bony man.
-
-
Long live Maigret
- By Adeliese Baumann on 11-19-14
By: Georges Simenon, and others
-
Zoo Station
- John Russell WWII Spy, Book 1
- By: David Downing
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By 1939, Anglo-American journalist John Russell has spent over a decade in Berlin, where his son lives with his mother. He writes human-interest pieces for British and American papers, avoiding the investigative journalism that could get him deported. But as World War II approaches, he faces having to leave his son as well as his girlfriend of several years, a beautiful German starlet. When an acquaintance from his old communist days approaches him to do some work for the Soviets, Russell is reluctant, but he is unable to resist the offer.
-
-
Overall great listen!
- By Patricia on 02-28-24
By: David Downing
-
The Shadow District
- By: Arnaldur Indridason
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A 90-year-old man is found dead in his bed, smothered with his own pillow. On his desk, the police find newspaper cuttings about a murder case dating from the Second World War, when a young woman was found strangled behind Reykjavik's National Theatre. Konrad, a former detective, is bored with retirement and remembers the crime. He grew up in "the shadow district", a rough neighborhood bordered by the National Theatre. Why would someone be interested in that crime now?
-
-
A slow burn!
- By Rosemary Wells on 12-12-17
-
The Return
- Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between
- By: Hisham Matar
- Narrated by: Hisham Matar
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Hisham Matar was a 19-year-old university student in England, his father was kidnapped. One of the Qaddafi regime's most prominent opponents in exile, he was held in a secret prison in Libya. Hisham would never see him again. But he never gave up hope that his father might still be alive. "Hope," as he writes, "is cunning and persistent." Twenty-two years later, after the fall of Qaddafi, the prison cells were empty, and there was no sign of Jaballa Matar. Hisham returned with his mother and wife to the homeland he never thought he'd go back to again.
-
-
Touching memoir. Consider hard copy
- By Joschka Philipps on 02-22-18
By: Hisham Matar
-
Jar City
- By: Arnaldur Indridason
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gold Dagger Award winner Arnaldur Indridason’s novels featuring Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson became international sensations on their way to selling millions of copies worldwide. The debut of morose detective Sveinsson finds the inspector and his team delving into the murder of a retiree with horrifying secrets.
-
-
Cerebral Police Procedural
- By Aaron on 09-14-13
-
Babylon Berlin
- Gereon Rath, Book 1
- By: Volker Kutscher
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Berlin, 1929. Detective Inspector Rath was a successful career officer in the Cologne Homicide Division before a shooting incident in which he inadvertently killed a man. He has been transferred to the vice squad in Berlin, a job he detests even though he finds a new friend in his boss, Chief Inspector Wolter. There is seething unrest in the city, and the Commissioner of Police has ordered the vice squad to ruthlessly enforce the ban on May Day demonstrations.
-
-
It's no Bernie Gunther Mystery ...
- By Brian English on 01-28-18
By: Volker Kutscher
-
Pietr the Latvian
- Inspector Maigret, Book 1
- By: Georges Simenon, David Bellos - translator
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first audiobook which appeared in Georges Simenon's famous Maigret series, in a gripping new translation by David Bellos.Inevitably Maigret was a hostile presence in the Majestic. He constituted a kind of foreign body that the hotel's atmosphere could not assimilate. Not that he looked like a cartoon policeman. He didn't have a moustache and he didn't wear heavy boots. His clothes were well cut and made of fairly light worsted. He shaved every day and looked after his hands. But his frame was proletarian. He was a big, bony man.
-
-
Long live Maigret
- By Adeliese Baumann on 11-19-14
By: Georges Simenon, and others
-
Zoo Station
- John Russell WWII Spy, Book 1
- By: David Downing
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By 1939, Anglo-American journalist John Russell has spent over a decade in Berlin, where his son lives with his mother. He writes human-interest pieces for British and American papers, avoiding the investigative journalism that could get him deported. But as World War II approaches, he faces having to leave his son as well as his girlfriend of several years, a beautiful German starlet. When an acquaintance from his old communist days approaches him to do some work for the Soviets, Russell is reluctant, but he is unable to resist the offer.
-
-
Overall great listen!
- By Patricia on 02-28-24
By: David Downing
-
The Shadow District
- By: Arnaldur Indridason
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A 90-year-old man is found dead in his bed, smothered with his own pillow. On his desk, the police find newspaper cuttings about a murder case dating from the Second World War, when a young woman was found strangled behind Reykjavik's National Theatre. Konrad, a former detective, is bored with retirement and remembers the crime. He grew up in "the shadow district", a rough neighborhood bordered by the National Theatre. Why would someone be interested in that crime now?
-
-
A slow burn!
- By Rosemary Wells on 12-12-17
-
The Return
- Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between
- By: Hisham Matar
- Narrated by: Hisham Matar
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Hisham Matar was a 19-year-old university student in England, his father was kidnapped. One of the Qaddafi regime's most prominent opponents in exile, he was held in a secret prison in Libya. Hisham would never see him again. But he never gave up hope that his father might still be alive. "Hope," as he writes, "is cunning and persistent." Twenty-two years later, after the fall of Qaddafi, the prison cells were empty, and there was no sign of Jaballa Matar. Hisham returned with his mother and wife to the homeland he never thought he'd go back to again.
-
-
Touching memoir. Consider hard copy
- By Joschka Philipps on 02-22-18
By: Hisham Matar
-
Night Soldiers
- By: Alan Furst
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 18 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
New York Times bestselling author Alan Furst is widely recognized as master of the historical spy novel. Furst’s works are vivid evocations of long-forgotten heroes and feature plots that unfold to the inexorable cadence of history. Night Soldiers is a simultaneously thrilling and illuminating tale of espionage set in 1934.
-
-
Best Alan Furst novel!
- By Placeholder on 04-27-11
By: Alan Furst
-
A Carrion Death
- Introducing Detective Kubu
- By: Michael Stanley
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Smashed skull, snapped ribs, and a cloying smell of carrion. Leave the body for the hyenas to devour - no body, no case. But when Kalahari game rangers stumble on a human corpse midmeal, it turns out the murder wasn't perfect after all. Enough evidence is left to suggest foul play. Detective David "Kubu" Bengu of the Botswana Criminal Investigation Department is assigned to the case.
-
-
Hot and Arid
- By Robert on 11-06-08
By: Michael Stanley
-
Snow White Must Die
- By: Nele Neuhaus
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 15 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a rainy November day, police detectives Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver von Bodenstein are summoned to a mysterious traffic accident: a woman has fallen from a pedestrian bridge onto a car driving underneath. According to a witness, the woman may have been pushed. The investigation leads Pia and Oliver to a small village, and the home of the victim, Rita Cramer. On a September evening eleven years earlier, two seventeen-year-old girls vanished from the village without a trace.
-
-
Snow White and the Seven Red Herrings
- By Mel on 01-17-13
By: Nele Neuhaus
-
Eichmann in My Hands
- A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner
- By: Peter Z. Malkin, Harry Stein
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1960 Argentina, a covert team of Israeli agents hunted down the most elusive war criminal alive: Adolf Eichmann, chief architect of the Holocaust. The young spy who tackled Eichmann on a Buenos Aires street - and fought every compulsion to strangle the Obersturmführer then and there - was Peter Z. Malkin. For decades Malkin's identity as Eichmann's captor was kept secret. Here he reveals the entire breathtaking story - from the genesis of the top-secret surveillance operation to the dramatic public capture and smuggling of Eichmann to Israel to stand trial.
-
-
Excellent the first person account
- By Barrett Francescatti on 02-09-22
By: Peter Z. Malkin, and others
-
The Best of Our Spies
- Spy Masters, Book 1
- By: Alex Gerlis
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 15 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
France, July 1944: a month after the Allied landings in Normandy, and the liberation of Europe is under way. In the Pas-de-Calais, Nathalie Mercier, a young British Special Operations executive secret agent working with the French Resistance, disappears. In London, her husband, Owen Quinn, an officer with Royal Navy Intelligence, discovers the truth about her role in the Allies' sophisticated deception at the heart of D-Day.
-
-
The Best Kind of Spy Story
- By Linda Hanson on 01-11-16
By: Alex Gerlis
-
The Kindly Ones
- By: Jonathan Littell
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 39 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The chilling fictional memoir of Dr. Maximilien Aue, a former Nazi officer who has reinvented himself, many years after the war, as a middle-class family man and factory owner in France. Max is an intellectual steeped in philosophy, literature, and classical music. He is also a cold-blooded assassin and the consummate bureaucrat. Through the eyes of this cultivated yet monstrous man, we experience in disturbingly precise detail the horrors of the Second World War and the Nazi genocide of the Jews.
-
-
Office politics in hell
- By Maine Colonial 🌲 on 04-02-13
By: Jonathan Littell
-
Italian Shoes
- By: Henning Mankell
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With more than 30 million copies of his works published, in 37 languages, award-winning author Henning Mankell may be Sweden's most accomplished novelist. Here he crafts the icy, atmospheric tale of Fredrik Welin, a disgraced surgeon living in exile on a small island. When Fredrik receives a surprise visit from a lover he abandoned decades earlier, he begins the difficult road to redemption.
-
-
Nothing like Kurt Wallander
- By Pamela on 10-18-12
By: Henning Mankell
-
Stormbreaker
- The First Alex Rider Adventure
- By: Anthony Horowitz
- Narrated by: Nathaniel Parker
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They said his uncle Ian died in a car accident. Alex Rider knows that's a lie, and the bullet holes in his uncle's car confirm the truth. But nothing can prepare him for the news that the uncle he always thought he knew was really a spy for Britain's top-secret intelligence agency. Enlisted to find his uncle's killers and complete Ian's final mission, Alex suddenly finds himself caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse, with no way out.
-
-
Okay action story held up by an great narrator
- By Mary Fan on 08-13-13
By: Anthony Horowitz
-
The Unlikely Spy
- By: Daniel Silva
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 18 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
“In wartime,” Winston Churchill wrote, “truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” For Britain’s counterintelligence operations, this meant finding the unlikeliest agent imaginable - a history professor named Alfred Vicary, handpicked by Churchill himself to expose a highly dangerous, but unknown, traitor. The Nazis, however, have also chosen an unlikely agent.
-
-
The Unlikely Spy
- By Margaret on 12-14-09
By: Daniel Silva
-
Last Evenings on Earth
- By: Roberto Bolano, Chris Andrews - translator
- Narrated by: David Crommett
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first short-story collection in English by the acclaimed Chilean author Roberto Bolano. Winner of a 2005 PEN Translation Fund Award. "The melancholy folklore of exile", as Roberto Bolano once put it, pervades these 14 haunting stories. Bolano's narrators are usually writers grappling with private (and generally unlucky) quests, who typically speak in the first person, as if giving a deposition, like witnesses to a crime.
-
-
Solid Character based Stories
- By Michael on 06-06-24
By: Roberto Bolano, and others
-
Killed at the Whim of a Hat
- By: Colin Cotterill
- Narrated by: Jeany Park
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jimm Juree was a crime reporter for the Chiang Mai Daily Mail with a somewhat eccentric family. When she is forced to follow her family to a rural village on the coast of Southern Thailand, she’s convinced her career—maybe her life—is over. So when a van containing the skeletal remains of two hippies is inexplicably unearthed in a local farmer’s field, Jimm is thrilled. Shortly thereafter an abbot at a local Buddhist temple is viciously murdered.
-
-
delighted...
- By Bobbie on 08-23-11
By: Colin Cotterill
-
Death at La Fenice
- Commissario Brunetti Mysteries, Book 1
- By: Donna Leon
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During intermission at the famed La Fenice opera house in Venice, Italy, a notoriously difficult and widely disliked German conductor is poisoned—and suspects abound. Guido Brunetti, a native Venetian, sets out to unravel the mystery behind the high-profile murder. To do so, he calls on his knowledge of Venice, its culture, and its dirty politics. Along the way, he finds the crime may have roots going back decades—and that revenge, corruption, and even Italian cuisine may play a role.
-
-
Hercule Poirot in Venice...!!!
- By Emil Grancagnolo on 10-09-22
By: Donna Leon
What listeners say about The Man from Beijing
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
- Stevon
- 04-02-10
a different spin
Different from the Kurt Wallander series but still a good listen. It's good to know the author is still writing, he must have had some experience with the Chinese to come up with this one. Like the Wallander books, this one seems to plod along at time but in the end a good story is woven. I did enjoy the Chinese perspective.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Alexandra
- 07-29-18
really bad narration ruins this book
I have read the print CV opt of this book and it is a good story, but this audible version absolutely ruins it. the accents are so phony they are painful to the ear. the narrator would have fared much better if she had used her natural accent, instead of the crash accent she put on to narrate the conversations
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 02-12-23
Excellent female characters
I love how the female character is always the most predominant, in each couple described the companion was left as an unaccomplished, unfulfilled being, whilst the women were (for lack of a better phrase) kicking ass, that was a refreshing read when you’re accustomed to always have a predominant male ruling the storyline.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
- Maassai
- 09-13-10
Very Good Listening
I couldn't stop listening to this book. It was very good. Once again, it was adventurous, some historical content, and just all around enjoyable. I learned about a people who were not treated the best upon entering this country. In fact they were not treated to well in there country. It was interesting to learn their perspective about our customs and culture. I really enjoyed the book and have listened to it two times already.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- R. M. Leslie
- 04-10-21
complex story
loved it and I had it on audible so it lasted for a road trip. complex story with a history
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dreyfus
- 09-12-18
Insightful Look into a Crime in a Socialist World
I listened to the audiobook version of this story. I don't normally listen to audiobooks, but I recommend this one!
The possibility exists that this book is controversial. As an American, it is surreal almost how disparagingly the book presents capitalism, and how much positive things are said constantly about Mao of China and his communist revolution. I personally am a socialist, so I found it incredibly refreshing to hear about these things without the filter of coming from the mouth of capitalism--but I am almost positive that some people uncomfortable with socialism, communism, and China will find this book takes them outside of their comfort zone.
The story is both a mystery and a bit of a political thriller. You constantly have to deal with a main character who frustratingly never wants to share anything with anybody. But she makes up for it in other ways. From her never ending pursuit of the truth to her keen eye for the smallest detail, the main character is a treat to follow. The other characters are great too!
The story will bounce around here and there to different people's perspectives and even different countries. It can be difficult when you don't know the new characters, but you get used to it.
The narrator makes some great Swedish and Chinese accents! I never thought I would learn to love the Swedish accent, but I do now.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- David
- 07-16-10
Mankell's pawns
The book never quite makes up its mind whether it wants to be a mystery or an historical novel or a lesson in latter day socialism. As a result the mystery, gripping and involving at first, is never actually "solved," at least not by the main character. In fact, since the central motivation and players in the crime are revealed to the reader by the midpoint of the book, there really IS no mystery for the last half. The historical novel, probably the most interesting part of the work, is nested in the middle of the story, beginning and ending abruptly and without satisfying integration. And the analysis of Chinese socialism, sometimes insightful, finally reduces to a kind of unconvincing rehabilitation of Mao as the wise old man.
Mankell is a wonderful observer of detail and he does a fine job of revealing the inner turmoil in lives which seem humdrum on the surface. Unfortunately that is not enough to produce a satisfying book (of any of the three possible genres).
As a resident in Beijing for several years now, I appreciated the author's evocation of the city and it's often Byzantine mixtures of courtesy, political deviousness, and concealed influence. I would, however, hate for anyone to read this book and trust the impression of China which they carry away from it.
Finally, Mankell seems often to write characters which are inept, making obviously poor choices. In this case, I found it vexing that neither of the central, female character's was ever allowed to do anything effectual in her own defense. They were pawns moved around the board to achieve the author's ends.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
- JRK
- 03-13-10
Too Much!
It was too much world and too much time to travel to and from. I was waiting for some good detective work to come in to play, but it didn't happen. Sorry, a reader for sure, but don't look for consistancy here.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Frederick
- 03-11-10
Worth a Read or Listen
Okay -- it does slow down in parts and it does tend to the pedantic. However, I will definitely read or listen to this author again. I learned a lot and though the mystery isn't that much of a mystery, how it is unraveled is worth the read. Give it a go!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
- Cliff Hanger
- 04-22-11
long and boring
I read all of Henning Mankell's books and loved Wallender, but this book was just too long and boring. Is Mankell running out of steam? The story seemed to wander around and it was hard to keep interested.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!