The Red Balcony
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Peter Noble
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By:
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Jonathan Wilson
About this listen
Based on actual events, a gripping novel of sex, love, history and justice in the tinderbox of British Mandatory Palestine, by the acclaimed author of A Palestine Affair
"The story of what is arguably Israel’s foundational murder trial—a tale of multiple identities and loyalties." —Joshua Cohen, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of The Netanyahus
“Pleases on several levels: as an adventure tale, a star-crossed romance and a detailed period piece.” —The Wall Street Journal
It’s 1933, and Ivor Castle, Oxford-educated and Jewish, arrives in Palestine to take up a position as assistant to the defense counsel in the trial of the two men accused of murdering Haim Arlosoroff, a leader of the Jewish community in Palestine whose efforts to get Jews out of Hitler’s Germany and into Palestine may have been controversial enough to get him killed.
While preparing for the trial, Ivor, an innocent to the politics of the case, falls into bed and deeply in love with Tsiona, a free-spirited artist who happened to sketch the accused men in a Jerusalem café on the night of the murder and may be a key witness. As Ivor learns the hard way about the violence simmering just beneath the surface of British colonial rule, Jonathan Wilson dazzles with his mastery of the sun-drenched landscape and the subtleties of the warring agendas among the Jews, Arabs, and British.
And as he travels between the crime scene in Tel Aviv and the mazelike streets of Jerusalem, between the mounting mysteries surrounding this notorious case and clandestine lovemaking in Tsiona’s studio, Ivor must discover where his heart lies: whether he cares more for the law or the truth, whether he is more an Englishman or a Jew, and where and with whom he truly belongs.
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Critic reviews
“The Red Balcony pleases on several levels: as an adventure tale, a star-crossed romance and a detailed period piece. Mr. Wilson’s novel is also strong as a legal thriller." —Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal
“A sizzling tale of murder and high politics, sex and betrayal . . . [The Red Balcony] successfully delves into the conflicting loyalties and identities of Mandate Palestine." —Robert Philpot, The Times of Israel
"A seductive historical novel . . . Despite the bright Mediterranean sun, The Red Balcony is essentially—in structure and in spirit—a noir . . . Wilson’s characters establish the ideological spectrum of 1930s Palestine, with each representing a political position we still find in Israel today . . .The Red Balcony is delightful for bringing the undeniable mystical tinge of that beautiful landscape to life . . . [yet ultimately] Wilson reminds us that the land of Israel has always housed 'multiple clashing dreams.'" —Randy Rosenthal, Los Angeles Times
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Opening in Calcutta in the 1960s, Ghosh’s radiant second novel follows two families - one English, one Bengali - as their lives intertwine in tragic and comic ways. The narrator, Indian-born and English educated, traces events back and forth in time, through years of Bengali partition and violence, observing the ways in which political events invade private lives.
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Narrator Doesn't Know How to Pronounce
- By Amazon Customer on 08-27-11
By: Amitav Ghosh
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Pietr the Latvian
- Inspector Maigret, Book 1
- By: Georges Simenon, David Bellos - translator
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Long live Maigret
- By Adeliese Baumann on 11-19-14
By: Georges Simenon, and others
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The Recognitions
- By: William Gaddis
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 47 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Wyatt Gwyon's desire to forge is not driven by larceny but from love. Exactingly faithful to the spirit and letter of the Flemish masters, he produces uncannily accurate "originals" - pictures the painters themselves might have envied. In an age of counterfeit emotion and taste, the real and fake have become indistinguishable; yet Gwyon's forgeries reflect a truth that others cannot touch - cannot even recognize.
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Breathtaking, Dizzying, Stimulating, Funny
- By andrew on 11-17-10
By: William Gaddis
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Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions
- Auntie Poldi, Book 1
- By: Mario Giordano
- Narrated by: Matt Addis
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Auntie Poldi can think of no finer place to wait for death than Sicily. All she asks is a sea view, fine wine (and plenty of it), and her family close around. When death instead takes her handsome young friend Valentino - and under mysterious circumstances at that - Poldi will not take it lying down. Perhaps it's in her blood, but Auntie Poldi's hunting instincts have never felt more alive. Justice must be served - if it's the last thing she does....
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More fun and murder in Sicily!
- By MolllyT on 02-19-18
By: Mario Giordano
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What You Have Heard Is True
- A Memoir of Witness and Resistance
- By: Carolyn Forché
- Narrated by: Carolyn Forché
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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What You Have Heard is True is a devastating, lyrical, and visionary memoir about a young woman’s brave choice to engage with horror in order to help others. Written by one of the most gifted poets of her generation, this is the story of a woman’s radical act of empathy, and her fateful encounter with an intriguing man who changes the course of her life.
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Beautiful story
- By Norhilda on 05-09-19
By: Carolyn Forché
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The German House
- By: Annette Hess
- Narrated by: Nina Franoszek
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Set against the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials of 1963, Annette Hess’ international best seller is a harrowing yet ultimately uplifting coming-of-age story about a young female translator - caught between societal and familial expectations and her unique ability to speak truth to power - as she fights to expose the dark truths of her nation’s past.
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Just ok
- By Jennifer on 12-16-19
By: Annette Hess
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Fletch: Booktrack Edition
- The Fletch Mysteries, Book 1
- By: Gregory Mcdonald
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Fletch, investigative reporter extraordinaire, can’t be bothered with deadlines or expense-account budgets when it comes to getting his story. Working undercover at the beach to dig up a drug-trafficking scheme for his next blockbuster piece, Fletch is invited into a much deeper narrative. Alan Stanwyk, CEO of Collins Aviation and all-around family man, mistakes the reporter for a strung-out vagabond and asks him for a favor: kill him and escape to Brazil with $50,000.
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Great plot, fun characters
- By Anonymous User on 10-26-24
By: Gregory Mcdonald
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The Murderer in Ruins
- CI Frank Stave, Book 1
- By: Cay Rademacher
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Hamburg, 1947. A ruined city occupied by the British who bombed it, experiencing the coldest winter in living memory. Food is scarce; refugees and the homeless crowd into shantytowns and sheds. There is a killer on the loose, and all attempts to find him or her have failed. Plagued with worry about his missing son, Frank Stave is a career policeman with a tragedy in his past that is driving his determination to find the killer.
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Wasn't sure at first, but...
- By John S. on 01-14-21
By: Cay Rademacher
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The Library of Legends
- A Novel
- By: Janie Chang
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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China, 1937: When Japanese bombs begin falling on the city of Nanking, 19-year-old Hu Lian and her classmates at Minghua University are ordered to flee. Lian and a convoy of more than 100 students, faculty, and staff must walk 1,000 miles to the safety of China’s western provinces, a journey marred by hunger, cold, and the constant threat of aerial attack. And it is not just the student refugees who are at risk: Lian and her classmates have been entrusted with a priceless treasure, a 500-year-old collection of myths and folklore known as the Library of Legends.
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Wonderful and Umique!
- By D. Fields on 02-18-22
By: Janie Chang
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Fifteen Postcards
- The Old Curiosity Shop, Book 1
- By: Kirsten McKenzie
- Narrated by: Tracey Llewelyn
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Determined to save the antiques store she has inherited from ruin after the unexplained disappearance of her parents, Sarah Lester discovers a jumbled collection of vintage postcards that leads her on a journey through time. Unprepared for the story the postcards weave about their reclusive former owner, Sarah’s life is thrown into disarray as she is transported to Victorian London, colonial New Zealand, and to the British Raj in 19th-century India.
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Disappointing and disorganized
- By Miranda on 03-16-22
By: Kirsten McKenzie
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Cocaine Blues
- By: Kerry Greenwood
- Narrated by: Stephanie Daniel
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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It's the end of the roaring twenties, and the exuberant and Honourable Phryne Fisher is dancing and gaming with gay abandon. But she becomes bored with London and the endless round of parties. In search of excitement, she sets her sights on a spot of detective work in Melbourne, Australia. And so mystery and the beautiful Russian dancer, Sasha de Lisse, appear in her life. From then on it's all cocaine and communism until her adventure reaches its steamy end in the Turkish baths of Little Lonsdale Street.
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A series that just gets better
- By Barbara Kindle Customer on 02-01-11
By: Kerry Greenwood
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Sanshiro
- Penguin Classics
- By: Natsume Soseki, Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin
- Narrated by: Andrew Koji
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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One of Soseki's most beloved works of fiction, the novel depicts the 23-year-old Sanshiro leaving the sleepy countryside for the first time in his life to experience the constantly moving 'real world' of Tokyo, its women and university. In the subtle tension between our appreciation of Soseki's lively humour and our awareness of Sanshiro's doomed innocence, the novel comes to life. Sanshiro is also penetrating social and cultural commentary.
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This story had no point.
- By icelandicponies on 12-30-21
By: Natsume Soseki, and others
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Yours Until Death
- Varg Veum
- By: Gunnar Staalesen
- Narrated by: Colin Mace
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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An unbearably tense novel of revenge, murder, bereavement and the destructive force of passion. The single-mother families of the isolated community under the shadow of the Pyderhorn, Bergen's greatest mountain, are being terrorised by a teenage gang. But teenage violence is nothing compared to what awaits detective Varg Veum when he gets to know the blue-eyed Wenche Andersen.
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Great Scandinavian Mystery!
- By Peoko on 07-12-17
By: Gunnar Staalesen
What listeners say about The Red Balcony
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Nancy
- 03-30-23
Based on historical events
The assassination and the trial, including the false confession, were historical. The riots and massacres by the Arabs actually happened. The core of the fiction was the affair with the woman of the red balcony, which I found to be the least interesting aspect of the book.
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- Theologator
- 10-29-23
Strong Start, Weak Finish
This novel begins with a compelling story about a trial set in Palestine under the British mandate, between World War I and World War II. Tensions between Jews and Arabs, the British, and Jews of differing opinion are well presented with compelling characters. It’s a helpful window into that era of history wound around a murder mystery.
However, just as the trial is coming into view with all of its complexities, the plot shifts suddenly away from it for no apparent reason. No spoilers, but the trial and the end have little to do with all that preceded them. If the point is how pointless everything is, why am I making a point to read it?
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- Anat
- 07-05-23
Potentially fascinating story, not realized
Potentially fascinating and riveting story, but the promise is not realized.
I couldn’t listen any more after the first two and a half hours; shallow love story that does not do justice to the turmoil in this volatile region and the effects after the murder. Perhaps later in the book it will emerge better, but those first two hours were enough for me.
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