-
The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Pierce Cravens
- Length: 17 hrs and 54 mins
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
Publisher's summary
The number-one internationally best-selling thriller and ingenious audiobook within an audiobook, about the disappearance of a 15-year-old New Hampshire girl and, 30 years later, a young American writer's determination to clear his mentor's name - and find the inspiration for his next best seller.
August 30, 1975: The day 15-year-old Nola Kellergan is glimpsed fleeing through the woods before she disappears; the day Somerset, New Hampshire, lost its innocence.
Thirty-three years later, Marcus Goldman, a successful young novelist, visits Somerset to see his mentor, Harry Quebert, one of America's most respected writers, and to find a cure for his writer's block as his publisher's deadline looms. But Marcus's plans are violently upended when Harry is suddenly and sensationally implicated in the cold-case murder of Nola Kellergan - whom, he admits, he had an affair with.
As the national media convicts Harry, Marcus launches his own investigation, following a trail of clues through his mentor’s books, the backwoods and isolated beaches of New Hampshire, and the hidden history of Somerset’s citizens and the man they hold most dear. To save Harry, his writing career, and eventually even himself, Marcus must answer three questions, all of which are mysteriously connected: Who killed Nola Kellergan? What happened one misty morning in Somerset in the summer of 1975? And how do you write a successful and true novel?
A global phenomenon, with sales approaching a million copies in France alone and rights sold in more than 30 countries, The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair is a fast-paced, tightly plotted, cinematic literary thriller and an ingenious book within a book, by a dazzling young writer.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Tom Lake
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
-
-
So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
-
None of This Is True
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Jewell
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton, Ayesha Antoine, Louise Brealey, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summer crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins. A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.
-
-
Victim shaming a teen girl?
- By Lisa & Travis on 08-11-23
By: Lisa Jewell
-
The Enigma of Room 622
- A Novel
- By: Joël Dicker
- Narrated by: Chris Harper
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A writer named Joël, Switzerland’s most prominent novelist, flees to the Hôtel de Verbier, a luxury resort in the Swiss Alps. Disheartened over a recent breakup and his longtime publisher’s death, Joël hopes to rest. However, his plans quickly go awry. It all starts with a seemingly innocuous detail: at the Verbier, there is no room 622. Before long, Joël and fellow guest Scarlett uncover a long-unsolved murder that transpired in the hotel's room 622.
-
-
Deus ex machina.
- By T Moylan on 05-16-23
By: Joël Dicker
-
The Cuckoo's Calling
- By: Robert Galbraith
- Narrated by: Robert Glenister
- Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, creditors are calling, and after a breakup with his longtime girlfriend, he’s living in his office. Then John Bristow walks through his door with a shocking story: His sister, the legendary supermodel Lula Landry - known to her friends as the Cuckoo - famously fell to her death a few months earlier.
-
-
Unbelievable debut mystery set in London
- By Tracey on 05-26-13
By: Robert Galbraith
-
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone
- A Novel
- By: Benjamin Stevenson
- Narrated by: Barton Welch
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but it is the truth. Some of us are good, others are bad, and some just unfortunate. I’m Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I’d killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it’s a little more complicated than that.
-
-
Good book
- By Wowhite on 09-05-23
-
Murder Your Employer
- The McMasters Guide to Homicide
- By: Rupert Holmes
- Narrated by: Neil Patrick Harris, Simon Vance
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who hasn’t wondered for a split second what the world would be like if a person who is the object of your affliction ceased to exist? But then you’ve probably never heard of The McMasters Conservatory, dedicated to the consummate execution of the homicidal arts. To gain admission, a student must have an ethical reason for erasing someone who deeply deserves a fate no worse (nor better) than death. The campus of this “Poison Ivy League” college—its location unknown to even those who study there—is where you might find yourself the practice target of a classmate.
-
-
Great idea; not so great book
- By Michael Ferris on 03-06-23
By: Rupert Holmes
-
Tom Lake
- A Novel
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Meryl Streep
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
-
-
So incredibly boring
- By Rhonda Morrison on 08-05-23
By: Ann Patchett
-
None of This Is True
- A Novel
- By: Lisa Jewell
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton, Ayesha Antoine, Louise Brealey, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summer crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins. A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.
-
-
Victim shaming a teen girl?
- By Lisa & Travis on 08-11-23
By: Lisa Jewell
-
The Enigma of Room 622
- A Novel
- By: Joël Dicker
- Narrated by: Chris Harper
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A writer named Joël, Switzerland’s most prominent novelist, flees to the Hôtel de Verbier, a luxury resort in the Swiss Alps. Disheartened over a recent breakup and his longtime publisher’s death, Joël hopes to rest. However, his plans quickly go awry. It all starts with a seemingly innocuous detail: at the Verbier, there is no room 622. Before long, Joël and fellow guest Scarlett uncover a long-unsolved murder that transpired in the hotel's room 622.
-
-
Deus ex machina.
- By T Moylan on 05-16-23
By: Joël Dicker
-
The Cuckoo's Calling
- By: Robert Galbraith
- Narrated by: Robert Glenister
- Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, creditors are calling, and after a breakup with his longtime girlfriend, he’s living in his office. Then John Bristow walks through his door with a shocking story: His sister, the legendary supermodel Lula Landry - known to her friends as the Cuckoo - famously fell to her death a few months earlier.
-
-
Unbelievable debut mystery set in London
- By Tracey on 05-26-13
By: Robert Galbraith
-
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone
- A Novel
- By: Benjamin Stevenson
- Narrated by: Barton Welch
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but it is the truth. Some of us are good, others are bad, and some just unfortunate. I’m Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I’d killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it’s a little more complicated than that.
-
-
Good book
- By Wowhite on 09-05-23
-
Murder Your Employer
- The McMasters Guide to Homicide
- By: Rupert Holmes
- Narrated by: Neil Patrick Harris, Simon Vance
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who hasn’t wondered for a split second what the world would be like if a person who is the object of your affliction ceased to exist? But then you’ve probably never heard of The McMasters Conservatory, dedicated to the consummate execution of the homicidal arts. To gain admission, a student must have an ethical reason for erasing someone who deeply deserves a fate no worse (nor better) than death. The campus of this “Poison Ivy League” college—its location unknown to even those who study there—is where you might find yourself the practice target of a classmate.
-
-
Great idea; not so great book
- By Michael Ferris on 03-06-23
By: Rupert Holmes
-
Yellowface
- A Novel
- By: R. F. Kuang
- Narrated by: Helen Laser
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena’s a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn’t even get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts during World War I.
-
-
I've never hated a character harder
- By ashelyn downs on 07-26-23
By: R. F. Kuang
-
The Retreat
- By: Mark Edwards
- Narrated by: Simon Mattacks
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two years ago, Julia lost her family in a tragic accident. Her husband drowned trying to save their daughter, Lily, in the river near their rural home. But the little girl’s body was never found—and Julia believes Lily is somehow still alive. Alone and broke, Julia opens her house as a writers’ retreat. One of the first guests is Lucas, a horror novelist, who becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to Lily.
-
-
sum is greater than its parts.
- By Jo on 10-06-18
By: Mark Edwards
-
The Word Is Murder
- A Novel
- By: Anthony Horowitz
- Narrated by: Rory Kinnear
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The New York Times best-selling author of Magpie Murders and Moriarty brilliantly reinvents the classic crime novel once again with this clever and inventive mystery starring a fictional version of the author himself as the Watson to a modern-day Holmes, investigating a case involving buried secrets, murder, and a trail of bloody clues.
-
-
Something New
- By Alice on 06-26-18
By: Anthony Horowitz
-
The Murder of Mr. Wickham
- By: Claudia Gray
- Narrated by: Billie Fulford-Brown
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The happily married Mr. Knightley and Emma are throwing a party at their country estate, bringing together distant relatives and new acquaintances—characters beloved by Jane Austen fans. Definitely not invited is Mr. Wickham, whose latest financial scheme has netted him an even broader array of enemies. As tempers flare and secrets are revealed, it’s clear that everyone would be happier if Mr. Wickham got his comeuppance. Yet they’re all shocked when Wickham turns up murdered—except, of course, for the killer hidden in their midst.
-
-
Awesome!
- By Amazon Customer on 05-24-22
By: Claudia Gray
-
Before He Finds Her
- By: Michael Kardos
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone in the quiet Jersey Shore town of Silver Bay knows the story: on a Sunday evening in September 1991, Ramsey Miller threw a blowout block party, then murdered his beautiful wife and three-year-old daughter. But everyone is wrong. The daughter got away. Now she is nearly eighteen and tired of living in secrecy. Under the name Melanie Denison, she has spent the last fifteen years in small-town West Virginia as part of the Witness Protection Program. She has never been allowed to travel, go to a school dance, or even have internet at home. Precautions must be taken at every turn, because Ramsey Miller was never caught and might still be looking for his daughter.
-
-
Riveting Mystery Glues-2-U for Hours
- By W Perry Hall on 02-09-15
By: Michael Kardos
-
A Spy Among Friends
- Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal
- By: Ben Macintyre
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Who was Kim Philby? Those closest to him—like his fellow MI6 officer and best friend since childhood, Nicholas Elliot, and the CIA’s head of counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton—knew him as a loyal confidant and an unshakeable patriot. Philby was a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain’s counterintelligence against the Soviet Union. Together with Elliott and Angleton he stood on the front lines of the Cold War, holding Communism at bay. But he was secretly betraying them both: He was working for the Russians the entire time.
-
-
The narrator is incorrectly identified.
- By Greenlake DD on 07-30-14
By: Ben Macintyre
-
Fates and Furies
- A Novel
- By: Lauren Groff
- Narrated by: Will Damron, Julia Whelan
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the award-winning, New York Times best-selling author of The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Florida and Matrix, an exhilarating novel about marriage, creativity, art, and perception. Fates and Furies is a literary masterpiece that defies expectation. A dazzling examination of a marriage, it is also a portrait of creative partnership written by one of the best writers of her generation. Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives.
-
-
Paean to Marriage, Mythology and Theatre
- By W Perry Hall on 09-20-15
By: Lauren Groff
-
The Quiet Game
- By: Greg Iles
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 20 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When former prosecutor Penn Cage returns to his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, he doesn't find the peace he desperately craves. He finds that his own father is being blackmailed by a corrupt ex-cop. And when Penn investigates, he uncovers a murderous secret - and the small town's violent past.
-
-
Complex and Good Courtroom Drama!
- By R. Pontiflet on 02-09-15
By: Greg Iles
-
Keep Her Safe
- A Novel
- By: K. A. Tucker
- Narrated by: Robin Eller, Will Damron, Wendy Tremont King, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Despite their differences, Noah and Gracie are searching for answers to the same questions, and, together, they set out to uncover the truth about the Austin Police Department's dark and messy past. But the scandal that emerges is bigger than they bargained for, and goes far higher up than they ever imagined.
-
-
The end will Blow You Away!!!!
- By shelley on 01-26-18
By: K. A. Tucker
-
The Last Thing She Ever Did
- By: Gregg Olsen
- Narrated by: Karen Peakes
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The community along Oregon’s Deschutes River is one of successful careers and perfect families. For years, up-and-comers Liz and Owen have admired their good friends and neighbors, Carole and David. They appear to have it all - security, happiness, and a beautiful young son, Charlie. Then Charlie vanishes without a trace, and all that seemed safe is shattered by a tragedy that is incomprehensible - except to Liz.
-
-
I'm late, I'm late for a very important test...
- By shelley on 01-05-18
By: Gregg Olsen
-
Where They Found Her
- A Novel
- By: Kimberly McCreight
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert, Lauren Fortgang, Rachel F. Hirsch, and others
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the end of a long winter in well-to-do Ridgedale, New Jersey, the body of an infant is discovered in the woods near the town's prestigious university campus. No one knows who the baby is or how her body ended up out there. But there is no shortage of opinions.
-
-
Couldn't stop listening
- By Erika on 04-27-15
-
You Should Have Known
- By: Jean Hanff Korelitz
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 16 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Grace Reinhart Sachs is living the only life she ever wanted for herself. Devoted to her husband, a pediatric oncologist at a major cancer hospital, their young son Henry, and the patients she sees in her therapy practice, her days are full of familiar things: She lives in the very New York apartment in which she was raised, and sends Henry to the school she herself once attended. Dismayed by the ways in which women delude themselves, Grace is also the author of a book You Should Have Known, in which she cautions women to really hear what men are trying to tell them.
-
-
watch out -- you will have trouble unplugging
- By DrK on 05-16-14
Related to this topic
-
Goodnight, Irene
- An Irene Kelly Novel
- By: Jan Burke
- Narrated by: Eliza Foss
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The morning after Irene says goodnight to her old journalist friend O'Connor, he is killed suddenly upon opening a letter bomb. As the smoke clears, a devastated Irene determines to find the mail-bomber by tracing threads of an unsolved crime from 1955 - the same cold case O'Connor had been obsessed with.
-
-
Welcome Irene
- By Anonymous User on 04-29-08
By: Jan Burke
-
The Good Friday Murder
- A Christine Bennett Mystery, Book 1
- By: Lee Harris
- Narrated by: Dee Macaluso
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Christine Bennett has left the cloistered world of nuns for the profane world of New York State, where murder and madness are often linked. At a town meeting, Christine volunteers to investigate a 40-year-old murder case long since closed. Now she'll move heaven and earth to exonerate a pair of retarded savant twins, now senior citizens, of their mother's murder on Good Friday in 1950.
-
-
Polite procedural cozy
- By connie on 12-29-12
By: Lee Harris
-
Montalbano’s First Case and Other Stories
- The Inspector Montalbano, Book 0.5
- By: Andrea Camilleri
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 17 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Montalbano's First Case and Other Stories, Andrea Camilleri has selected 21 short stories, written with his trademark wit and humor, that follow Italy's famous detective through highlight cases of his career. From the title story, featuring a young Deputy Montalbano newly assigned to Vigàta, to "Montalbano Says No", in which the inspector makes a late-night call to Camilleri himself to refuse an outlandish case, this volume is an essential addition to any fan's collection and a wonderful way to introduce listeners to the internationally best-selling series.
-
-
THIS BOOK NEEDS TO BE LISTENED TO FIRST!!!
- By Reba on 12-31-16
By: Andrea Camilleri
-
The Night Ocean
- By: Paul La Farge
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marina Willett, MD, has a problem. Her husband, Charlie, has become obsessed with H. P. Lovecraft, in particular with one episode in the legendary horror writer's life: In the summer of 1934, the "old gent" lived for two months with a gay teenage fan named Robert Barlow, at Barlow's family home in central Florida. What were the two of them up to? Were they friends - or something more? Just when Charlie thinks he's solved the puzzle, a new scandal erupts, and he disappears.
-
-
Frustratingly Uneven Due to Clumsy Plot Structure
- By Adam on 06-15-17
By: Paul La Farge
-
Ransom
- By: Danielle Steel
- Narrated by: Ron McLarty
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Outside the gates of a California prison, Peter Morgan is released after four long years and vows to redeem himself in the eyes of the young daughters he left behind. Simultaneously, Carl Waters, a convicted murderer, is set on the path of freedom with him. That night, three hundred miles south in San Francisco, police detective Ted Lee comes home to a silent house; for twenty-nine years, he has been living for his job, and slowly falling out of love with his wife.
-
-
Ransom
- By Pamela on 04-23-04
By: Danielle Steel
-
Cold Truth
- By: Mariah Stewart
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty-six years ago, just before a series of brutal murders rocked the idyllic town of Bowers Inlet, Cassie Burke lost her family and nearly her own life to a transient befriended by her father. Back then, Cassie was a scared kid; now, she's a homicide cop. Back then, the suspect was caught and convicted; he died in prison. But now the killing has started again. And all signs indicate that the Bayside Strangler has come back for more.
-
-
Fabulous
- By Barbara on 05-19-06
By: Mariah Stewart
-
Goodnight, Irene
- An Irene Kelly Novel
- By: Jan Burke
- Narrated by: Eliza Foss
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The morning after Irene says goodnight to her old journalist friend O'Connor, he is killed suddenly upon opening a letter bomb. As the smoke clears, a devastated Irene determines to find the mail-bomber by tracing threads of an unsolved crime from 1955 - the same cold case O'Connor had been obsessed with.
-
-
Welcome Irene
- By Anonymous User on 04-29-08
By: Jan Burke
-
The Good Friday Murder
- A Christine Bennett Mystery, Book 1
- By: Lee Harris
- Narrated by: Dee Macaluso
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Christine Bennett has left the cloistered world of nuns for the profane world of New York State, where murder and madness are often linked. At a town meeting, Christine volunteers to investigate a 40-year-old murder case long since closed. Now she'll move heaven and earth to exonerate a pair of retarded savant twins, now senior citizens, of their mother's murder on Good Friday in 1950.
-
-
Polite procedural cozy
- By connie on 12-29-12
By: Lee Harris
-
Montalbano’s First Case and Other Stories
- The Inspector Montalbano, Book 0.5
- By: Andrea Camilleri
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 17 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Montalbano's First Case and Other Stories, Andrea Camilleri has selected 21 short stories, written with his trademark wit and humor, that follow Italy's famous detective through highlight cases of his career. From the title story, featuring a young Deputy Montalbano newly assigned to Vigàta, to "Montalbano Says No", in which the inspector makes a late-night call to Camilleri himself to refuse an outlandish case, this volume is an essential addition to any fan's collection and a wonderful way to introduce listeners to the internationally best-selling series.
-
-
THIS BOOK NEEDS TO BE LISTENED TO FIRST!!!
- By Reba on 12-31-16
By: Andrea Camilleri
-
The Night Ocean
- By: Paul La Farge
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Marina Willett, MD, has a problem. Her husband, Charlie, has become obsessed with H. P. Lovecraft, in particular with one episode in the legendary horror writer's life: In the summer of 1934, the "old gent" lived for two months with a gay teenage fan named Robert Barlow, at Barlow's family home in central Florida. What were the two of them up to? Were they friends - or something more? Just when Charlie thinks he's solved the puzzle, a new scandal erupts, and he disappears.
-
-
Frustratingly Uneven Due to Clumsy Plot Structure
- By Adam on 06-15-17
By: Paul La Farge
-
Ransom
- By: Danielle Steel
- Narrated by: Ron McLarty
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Outside the gates of a California prison, Peter Morgan is released after four long years and vows to redeem himself in the eyes of the young daughters he left behind. Simultaneously, Carl Waters, a convicted murderer, is set on the path of freedom with him. That night, three hundred miles south in San Francisco, police detective Ted Lee comes home to a silent house; for twenty-nine years, he has been living for his job, and slowly falling out of love with his wife.
-
-
Ransom
- By Pamela on 04-23-04
By: Danielle Steel
-
Cold Truth
- By: Mariah Stewart
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty-six years ago, just before a series of brutal murders rocked the idyllic town of Bowers Inlet, Cassie Burke lost her family and nearly her own life to a transient befriended by her father. Back then, Cassie was a scared kid; now, she's a homicide cop. Back then, the suspect was caught and convicted; he died in prison. But now the killing has started again. And all signs indicate that the Bayside Strangler has come back for more.
-
-
Fabulous
- By Barbara on 05-19-06
By: Mariah Stewart
-
Death by Honeymoon
- By: Jaden Skye
- Narrated by: Fiona McGuinness
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the rugged, wild, eastern shore of Barbados, Cindy and Clint are enjoying their dream honeymoon, when paradise quickly turns into hell. Cindy finds her newly beloved taken away from her, drowned in a freak accident in the ocean. The local police are quick to declare it an accident, to insist that he was caught in a sudden riptide. But Cindy, left all alone, is not convinced.
-
-
What a Great Crime Novel
- By S. DeJaeger on 10-09-16
By: Jaden Skye
-
Baltimore Blues
- Tess Monaghan, Book 1
- By: Laura Lippman
- Narrated by: Deborah Hazlett
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Unemployed at 29, Tess Monaghan is willing to take any freelance job to pay the rent—including a bit of unorthodox snooping for her rowing buddy, Darryl "Rock" Paxton. In a city where someone is murdered almost every day, attorney Michael Abramowitz's death should be just another statistic. But the slain lawyer's notoriety—and his noontime trysts with Rock's fiancée—make the case front page news...and point to Rock as the likely murderer. But trying to prove her friend's innocence could prove costly to Tess.
-
-
I'm on #8 - This series is almost unique
- By connie on 02-19-12
By: Laura Lippman
-
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
-
The Cutting
- A McCabe and Savage Thriller, Book 1
- By: James Hayman
- Narrated by: Stephen Mendel
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Detective Mike McCabe moved from a top homicide job with the NYPD to Portland, Maine, to leave his failed marriage and suspicions of wrongdoing behind, and to find a more peaceful life for himself and his 13-year-old daughter. But the small New England city is not nearly as safe as he thought. On a warm September night, a missing high school athlete is found dead in a scrap-metal yard, her heart removed from her body with surgical precision. As outrage over the killing spreads, a young businesswoman disappears while out on a morning jog.
-
-
Is It The Story? Or Its Telling? Hmmmm...
- By Ted on 12-01-15
By: James Hayman
-
Revenant
- By: Carolyn Haines
- Narrated by: Lauren Fortgang
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The remains of five women lie within, each one buried with a bridal veil...and without her ring finger. Once an award-winning journalist, Carson knows her career is now hanging by a thread. This story has pulled her out of a pit of alcohol and self-loathing, and with justice and redemption in mind she begins to investigate. Days later two more bodies appear, begging the question... Is a copycat murderer terrorizing Biloxi, or has a serial killer awoken from a 25-year slumber?
-
-
One of 2007's best mysteries
- By Janet on 06-07-08
By: Carolyn Haines
-
My Lovely Wife
- By: Samantha Downing
- Narrated by: David Pittu
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Our love story is simple. I met a gorgeous woman. We fell in love. We had kids. We moved to the suburbs. We told each other our biggest dreams and our darkest secrets. And then we got bored. We look like a normal couple. We're your neighbors, the parents of your kid's friend, the acquaintances with whom you keep meaning to get dinner. We all have our secrets to keeping a marriage alive. Ours just happens to be getting away with murder.
-
-
Great narrator! Crazy story!
- By EasyBreezySunflower on 03-28-19
By: Samantha Downing
-
The President’s Daughter
- By: Mariah Stewart
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dina McDermott is on top of the world. Attractive and independent at 30, she runs her own business, funded by a generous inheritance. But an explosive chain of events will soon be set into motion—and her perfect life will spin out of control. A journalist with a fearless instinct, Simon Keller believes he’s struck gold when he unearths an unsettling story about former president Graham Hayward, one that started with a secret affair and ended in tragedy. The trail leads Simon to Dina McDermott’s front door—and threatens to expose a parentage that would rock the political world.
-
-
Highly Recommended!
- By Johnsondv8 on 05-18-22
By: Mariah Stewart
-
The Company You Keep
- By: Neil Gordon
- Narrated by: Donald Corren, Hillary Huber, Kirby Heyborne, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set against the rise and fall of the radical antiwar group the Weather Underground, The Company You Keep is a sweeping American saga about sacrifice, the ecstatic righteousness of youth, and the tension between political ideals and family loyalties. When Jason Sinai, one of the last Vietnam-era fugitives still wanted on murder charges for a robbery gone wrong in 1974, encounters a young newspaper reporter in search of a story, he must abandon years of safe underground life for the dangerous life of the road.
-
-
Audiobook of the Year
- By connie on 05-13-12
By: Neil Gordon
-
The Sleeping Doll
- A Novel
- By: Jeffery Deaver
- Narrated by: Anne Twomey
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ten years ago in California, Daniel Pell, a self-styled Charles Manson, was sentenced to life in prison for murdering an entire family: husband, wife, and two children, plus one of his young male followers. He is brought to Salinas, California, to interview with Kathryn Dance after he is implicated in yet another killing. Things go terribly wrong during an interview break, and Pell escapes, intent on killing again.
-
-
A decent listen
- By Paige on 07-15-07
By: Jeffery Deaver
-
Breach of Duty
- A J.P. Beaumont Novel
- By: J. A. Jance
- Narrated by: Richard Cox
- Length: 2 hrs and 50 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jonas Piedmont Beaumont has had a hard life and learned at a young age how hard life can be. Two marriages, a treacherous battle with the bottle, assorted midlife and moral dilemmas, and a few decades as a homicide detective haven't convinced him otherwise. When Beau and his new partner Sue Danielson are assigned the murder of an elderly woman torched to death in her bed, Beau finds himself distracted by Sue's difficulties at home.
-
-
Not up to par with others
- By DC on 10-12-21
By: J. A. Jance
-
The Man from Primrose Lane
- By: James Renner
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A mind-bending, genre-twisting debut novel. In West Akron, there lived a reclusive elderly man who always wore mittens, even in July. He had no friends and no family; all over town, he was known only as The the Man from Primrose Lane. And on a summer day in 2008, someone murdered him.
-
-
Good read, despite, not because of sci fi twist
- By Lulu W. on 07-18-12
By: James Renner
-
Aphrodite
- By: Russell Andrews
- Narrated by: Buck Schirner
- Length: 11 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It looked for all the world like a terrible, tragic accident. Susanna Morgan had gotten up in the middle of the night, tripped, fallen, and broken her neck. Yet when detective Justin Westwood inspects the victim's apartment, he can't help noticing that the details don't quite add up. The glass on the bedside table is knocked over but there are no cuts on her body. The scrape on her knee looks suspiciously fresh. And then a terrified witness comes forward, confirming his worst fear.
-
-
Just Works - Wonderfully
- By Ted on 05-03-12
By: Russell Andrews
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Enigma of Room 622
- A Novel
- By: Joël Dicker
- Narrated by: Chris Harper
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A writer named Joël, Switzerland’s most prominent novelist, flees to the Hôtel de Verbier, a luxury resort in the Swiss Alps. Disheartened over a recent breakup and his longtime publisher’s death, Joël hopes to rest. However, his plans quickly go awry. It all starts with a seemingly innocuous detail: at the Verbier, there is no room 622. Before long, Joël and fellow guest Scarlett uncover a long-unsolved murder that transpired in the hotel's room 622.
-
-
Deus ex machina.
- By T Moylan on 05-16-23
By: Joël Dicker
-
La verdad sobre el caso Harry Quebert [The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair]
- By: Joël Dicker
- Narrated by: Jose Posada
- Length: 20 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
El mayor fenómeno editorial de los últimos años. Literariamente adictivo.Quién mató a Nola Kellergan es la gran incógnita a desvelar en este thriller incomparable cuya experiencia de lectura escapa a cualquier tentativa de descripción. Intentémoslo: Una gran novela policiaca y romántica a tres tiempos -1975, 1998 y 2008- acerca del asesinato de una joven de quince años en la pequeña ciudad de Aurora, en New Hampshire.
-
-
Excelente!!! Cautivante historia, bien lograda!!
- By Allan on 02-07-15
By: Joël Dicker
-
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
- Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D.
- By: Nicholas Meyer
- Narrated by: David Case
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This "rediscovered" Sherlock Holmes adventure recounts the unique collaboration of Holmes and Sigmund Freud in the solution of a mystery on which the lives of millions may depend.
-
-
Did I Get the Same Book Everyone Else Got?
- By Troy on 08-28-13
By: Nicholas Meyer
-
Un animal salvaje [A Wild Animal]
- By: Joël Dicker, María Teresa Gallego Urrutia - translator, Amaya García Gallego - translator
- Narrated by: Víctor Velasco
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
El 2 de julio de 2022, dos delincuentes se disponen a robar en una importante joyería de Ginebra. Un incidente que dista mucho de ser un vulgar atraco. Veinte días antes, en una lujosa urbanización a orillas del lago Lemán, Sophie Braun se prepara para celebrar su cuadragésimo cumpleaños. La vida le sonríe: vive con su familia en una mansión rodeada de bosques, pero su idílico mundo está a punto de tambalearse. Su marido anda enredado en sus pequeños secretos. Su vecino, un policía de reputación irreprochable, se ha obsesionado con ella y la espía hasta en los detalles más íntimos.
-
-
Intriga
- By Lilita84 on 10-27-24
By: Joël Dicker, and others
-
Un Animal Sauvage
- By: Joël Dicker
- Narrated by: Laurent Natrella
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
2 juillet 2022, deux malfaiteurs sont sur le point de dévaliser une grande bijouterie de Genève. Mais ce braquage est loin d'être un banal fait divers... Vingt jours plus tôt, dans une banlieue cossue des rives du lac Léman, Sophie Braun s'apprête à fêter ses quarante ans. La vie lui sourit. Elle habite avec sa famille dans une magnifique villa bordée par la forêt. Mais son monde idyllique commence à vaciller. Son mari est empêtré dans ses petits arrangements. Son voisin, un policier pourtant réputé irréprochable, est fasciné par elle jusqu'à l'obsession et l'épie dans sa vie la plus intime.
-
-
Must listen!
- By Jones sandra on 10-28-24
By: Joël Dicker
-
The Corfe Castle Murders
- Dorset Crime, Book 1
- By: Rachel McLean
- Narrated by: Jan Cramer
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet DCI Lesley Clarke. She’s a straight-talking city copper who doesn’t suffer fools gladly… and she’s been transferred to rural Dorset. After being injured in a bomb attack, Lesley is presented with a choice — early retirement, or a period of respite in a calmer location. But things don’t stay calm for long. Before she’s even started her new job, Lesley is dragged into investigating a murder at one of England’s most iconic landmarks, the imposing Corfe Castle.
By: Rachel McLean
-
The Enigma of Room 622
- A Novel
- By: Joël Dicker
- Narrated by: Chris Harper
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A writer named Joël, Switzerland’s most prominent novelist, flees to the Hôtel de Verbier, a luxury resort in the Swiss Alps. Disheartened over a recent breakup and his longtime publisher’s death, Joël hopes to rest. However, his plans quickly go awry. It all starts with a seemingly innocuous detail: at the Verbier, there is no room 622. Before long, Joël and fellow guest Scarlett uncover a long-unsolved murder that transpired in the hotel's room 622.
-
-
Deus ex machina.
- By T Moylan on 05-16-23
By: Joël Dicker
-
La verdad sobre el caso Harry Quebert [The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair]
- By: Joël Dicker
- Narrated by: Jose Posada
- Length: 20 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
El mayor fenómeno editorial de los últimos años. Literariamente adictivo.Quién mató a Nola Kellergan es la gran incógnita a desvelar en este thriller incomparable cuya experiencia de lectura escapa a cualquier tentativa de descripción. Intentémoslo: Una gran novela policiaca y romántica a tres tiempos -1975, 1998 y 2008- acerca del asesinato de una joven de quince años en la pequeña ciudad de Aurora, en New Hampshire.
-
-
Excelente!!! Cautivante historia, bien lograda!!
- By Allan on 02-07-15
By: Joël Dicker
-
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
- Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D.
- By: Nicholas Meyer
- Narrated by: David Case
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This "rediscovered" Sherlock Holmes adventure recounts the unique collaboration of Holmes and Sigmund Freud in the solution of a mystery on which the lives of millions may depend.
-
-
Did I Get the Same Book Everyone Else Got?
- By Troy on 08-28-13
By: Nicholas Meyer
-
Un animal salvaje [A Wild Animal]
- By: Joël Dicker, María Teresa Gallego Urrutia - translator, Amaya García Gallego - translator
- Narrated by: Víctor Velasco
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
El 2 de julio de 2022, dos delincuentes se disponen a robar en una importante joyería de Ginebra. Un incidente que dista mucho de ser un vulgar atraco. Veinte días antes, en una lujosa urbanización a orillas del lago Lemán, Sophie Braun se prepara para celebrar su cuadragésimo cumpleaños. La vida le sonríe: vive con su familia en una mansión rodeada de bosques, pero su idílico mundo está a punto de tambalearse. Su marido anda enredado en sus pequeños secretos. Su vecino, un policía de reputación irreprochable, se ha obsesionado con ella y la espía hasta en los detalles más íntimos.
-
-
Intriga
- By Lilita84 on 10-27-24
By: Joël Dicker, and others
-
Un Animal Sauvage
- By: Joël Dicker
- Narrated by: Laurent Natrella
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
2 juillet 2022, deux malfaiteurs sont sur le point de dévaliser une grande bijouterie de Genève. Mais ce braquage est loin d'être un banal fait divers... Vingt jours plus tôt, dans une banlieue cossue des rives du lac Léman, Sophie Braun s'apprête à fêter ses quarante ans. La vie lui sourit. Elle habite avec sa famille dans une magnifique villa bordée par la forêt. Mais son monde idyllique commence à vaciller. Son mari est empêtré dans ses petits arrangements. Son voisin, un policier pourtant réputé irréprochable, est fasciné par elle jusqu'à l'obsession et l'épie dans sa vie la plus intime.
-
-
Must listen!
- By Jones sandra on 10-28-24
By: Joël Dicker
-
The Corfe Castle Murders
- Dorset Crime, Book 1
- By: Rachel McLean
- Narrated by: Jan Cramer
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Meet DCI Lesley Clarke. She’s a straight-talking city copper who doesn’t suffer fools gladly… and she’s been transferred to rural Dorset. After being injured in a bomb attack, Lesley is presented with a choice — early retirement, or a period of respite in a calmer location. But things don’t stay calm for long. Before she’s even started her new job, Lesley is dragged into investigating a murder at one of England’s most iconic landmarks, the imposing Corfe Castle.
By: Rachel McLean
-
Malibu Burning
- Sharpe & Walker, Book 1
- By: Lee Goldberg
- Narrated by: Eric Conger
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hell comes to Southern California every October. It rides in on searing Santa Ana winds that blast at near hurricane force, igniting voracious wildfires. Master thief Danny Cole longs for the flames. A tsunami of fire is exactly what he needs to pull off a daring crime and avenge a fallen friend. As the most devastating firestorms in Los Angeles’ history scorch the hills of Malibu, relentless arson investigator Walter Sharpe and his wild card of a new partner, Andrew Walker, a former US marshal, suspect that someone set the massive blazes intentionally, a terrifying means to an unknown end.
-
-
Free is even better!!!!
- By shelley on 09-04-23
By: Lee Goldberg
-
The Hitchcock Hotel
- By: Stephanie Wrobel
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch, Gail Shalan, Helen Lloyd
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alfred Smettle is not your average Hitchcock fan. He is the founder, owner, and manager of The Hitchcock Hotel, a sprawling Victorian house in the White Mountains dedicated to the Master of Suspense. There, Alfred offers his guests round-the-clock film screenings, movie props and memorabilia in every room, plus an aviary with fifty crows. To celebrate the hotel’s first anniversary, he invites his former best friends from his college Film Club for a reunion. He hasn’t spoken to any of them in sixteen years, not after what happened.
-
-
An Interesting Hitcockian-style Thriller
- By Alyssa Black on 10-24-24
By: Stephanie Wrobel
-
There Are Rivers in the Sky
- A Novel
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Olivia Vinall, Elif Shafak
- Length: 16 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the ancient city of Nineveh, on the bank of the River Tigris, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, erudite but ruthless, built a great library that would crumble with the end of his reign. From its ruins, however, emerged a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, that would infuse the existence of two rivers and bind together three lives. In 1840 London, Arthur is born beside the stinking, sewage-filled River Thames. With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Arthur’s only chance of escaping destitution is his brilliant memory.
-
-
Fascinating Middle Eastern History
- By J. Bishop on 09-11-24
By: Elif Shafak
-
The Last House on Needless Street
- By: Catriona Ward
- Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a boarded-up house on a dead-end street at the edge of the wild Washington woods lives a family of three. A teenage girl who isn’t allowed outside, not after last time. A man who drinks alone in front of his TV, trying to ignore the gaps in his memory. And a house cat who loves napping and reading the Bible. An unspeakable secret binds them together, but when a new neighbor moves in next door, what is buried out among the birch trees may come back to haunt them all.
-
-
I can only listen in 1-2 hour segments!
- By Brenda on 10-04-21
By: Catriona Ward
-
The Word Is Murder
- A Novel
- By: Anthony Horowitz
- Narrated by: Rory Kinnear
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The New York Times best-selling author of Magpie Murders and Moriarty brilliantly reinvents the classic crime novel once again with this clever and inventive mystery starring a fictional version of the author himself as the Watson to a modern-day Holmes, investigating a case involving buried secrets, murder, and a trail of bloody clues.
-
-
Something New
- By Alice on 06-26-18
By: Anthony Horowitz
-
The Island of Missing Trees
- A Novel
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Daphne Kouma, Amira Ghazalla
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish.
-
-
WOW! What a great story and narration!
- By Marcy on 12-02-21
By: Elif Shafak
What listeners say about The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Alejandro
- 02-24-24
Muy buen thriller pero muy largo
Si me entretuvo mucho, pero se me hizo súper súper largo. Hay varios plot twists súper buenos en la segunda mitad que te hacen meterte mucho más en la historia. Una joya no es, pero esta bueno. Es un interesante thriller policiaco con un poco de romance a través de la mirada de un escritor.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kathi
- 05-28-14
Very good--but not a blockbuster
This turns out to be a rather intricate story that begins innocently enough. Marcus Goldman, a young man who has struggled with self-esteem in high school so much, that he has re-invented himself to become "Marcus The Magnificent." But he gets this title (partly in his own mind) by doing things in which it is so easy to excel that he gets a lot of (undeserved) adoration from others. He vaguely feels himself to be a bit of a fraud.
However, when, as an adult, he finds himself faced with writer's block and a huge book contract to fulfill, he has to face his own fear of failure. So he goes back to Somerset, NH to consult with his old friend and mentor, Harry Quebert. Harry is a successful author whom Marcus turns to for support and encouragement, just at the time when the body of Nora Kellergan is discovered. It turns out that when Harry was 34 and Nora 15, they had had an affair. And then she disappeared and it is only now, years later, that the case is re-opened because the body has at last been found. Buried on his property.
This is a book that is interesting, held my attention for sure, but puzzling at some level. The story builds with a large number of suspects that grow as the story progresses, and the plot development and twists and turns--especially at the end, are probably what holds the book together.
However, I found the contrast of characters who were often meant to be amusing (but occasionally were simply silly or unbelievable) with this murder investigation not to work as well as I would have wished. Possibly the author tried to put too much into the book--I don't know.
What works very well, is his clever use of a "story within a story" technique, in which he has Marcus finally write the book that has eluded him, by investigating the murder of Nora, in order to free his old friend who is immediately suspected of having killed her, and then arrested. This provides lots of space for Joel Dicker to explore what it means to be a writer, the behind the scenes aspects of writing that a reader would not be privy to, and the interaction between writer and publisher. I found that part to be very interesting and unusual.
This is a good book, and appears to have received rave reviews from everywhere. I liked it, but I didn't think it rose to the 5 star level in any category. Now that I have finished it, I find myself ironically comparing this whole work to the original "Marcus the Magnificent"--who got a lot of praise by accomplishing something rather too easily. It is surely worth the read, and others may find it more of a blockbuster than I did. But I found the writing itself pretty plain (possibly due to translation) and some of the characters were just off-putting instead of humorous (as I think the author intended). I do recommend this book--these are just my own reactions to it. The story and mystery are quite well put together and overall, despite my discomfort with some characters, was a fun read (listen).
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
11 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- avid reader
- 04-30-17
ok but not a favorite!
A little confusing to follow due to moving back and forth in time. Kept repeating the same thing and added just a little more each time. Kept my interest to find out who did it, but I didn't like the way it was written. I also never got to like the characters.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Fabulous Monster
- 03-14-19
A Not so Pleasant Surprise
I'm historically a snob. After reading Sartre and Dostoyevsky in high school, most everything bored and annoyed me outside of Vonnegut, Tan, and Danielewski. Unless something is interesting-- I mean, really out there-- straight into the depths of uncanny valley and veering woefully into the abyss-- I tend to dismiss it as a "beach book" or something "perhaps entertaining but painfully vacuous."
Perhaps that's why I liked Marcus. We had something in common. Both plagued with ego sickness and a need to outshine our wax denizens in the smallest box we could find, we were as bold as one of 12-26 expected colors could be. Then someone befriended us and called us out for the frauds we were, and instead of dropping them we followed and mimed our master's, remembering every rule for life we could.
The cheesiness and banality of the people we knew suddenly became interesting, and perhaps we learned that stereotypes are for a reason, but we remained delighted to discover that the most tropish of characters we knew had a rich backstory and a capacity to do and say things we never imagined.
Following the death of Marcus and Harry and getting a glimpse at their ghosts felt haunting to me in the best way. And while the prose lacked the certain prolixity and je ne sais quoi that hallmarks most great works, I kept listening. The meaning the author was able to convey using plain language, focusing instead on the spiritual and philosophical maturation of two spoiled frauds and their journey into authenticity, was immense for me, a person who has just turned 32 and is also feeling a a blank slate. There really is something about escaping adolescence that abandons the exotic quixotic, and settles for plain old love. The tenacity of banality and the banality of evil are peppered with the vaguery of goodness in this American fish of a tale.
I was born and raised in the US, and a part of me can't help but think this book is so hated by us because we can't stand to see ourselves reflected back at us, and we don't like to think value can come from small change words.
Well, I liked it anyway. I haven't liked a mystery novel this much in a long time. glad I didn't read the reviews first!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cynthia Dwyer
- 11-21-15
A surprise from end to start
Clever story with many twists and turns. All the characters, with all their flaws makes one feel like they are real.
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
- Kristin
- 10-11-17
One of the best books I have read in years !
I simply could not put this book down. The twists and turns kept you guessing with every chapter. Just when you think you have figured it out you're wrong again
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
- Nathan Johnson
- 07-13-16
Awesome and suspenseful!!
Awesome! Never a dull moment. I'm not a reader and I could not wait everyday to see what the next twist would be.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Placeholder
- 03-26-16
Great murder mystery
This reminded me of the old murder mystery books that I used to enjoy many years ago. I didn't want to put it down. I wrongly accused at least 4 different people of the murder changing constantly. This may appear to be a long book but it moves so fast. Plus the concept of a book about a book is so unique!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- eddy taylor
- 04-05-19
Excellent read. Excellent performance!
loved it from start to finish. Twists and turns that always kept me guessing. The performance was superb!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dr. Lench
- 07-01-23
Entertaining but not great
Classic whodunit with some surprises and a good twist at the end. But the characters are flat and predictable. Sentence structure is basically “subject verb maybe a few adjectives”. Moments of alliteration were almost embarrassingly overdone.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!