
The Violin Conspiracy
A Novel (Good Morning America Book Club)
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Narrated by:
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JD Jackson
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Brendan Slocumb
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By:
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Brendan Slocumb
About this listen
GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK! • Ray McMillian is a Black classical musician on the rise—undeterred by the pressure and prejudice of the classical music world—when a shocking theft sends him on a desperate quest to recover his great-great-grandfather’s heirloom violin on the eve of the most prestigious musical competition in the world.
“I loved The Violin Conspiracy for exactly the same reasons I loved The Queen’s Gambit: a surprising, beautifully rendered underdog hero I cared about deeply and a fascinating, cutthroat world I knew nothing about—in this case, classical music.”—Chris Bohjalian, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant and Hour of the Witch
Growing up Black in rural North Carolina, Ray McMillian’s life is already mapped out. But Ray has a gift and a dream—he’s determined to become a world-class professional violinist, and nothing will stand in his way. Not his mother, who wants him to stop making such a racket; not the fact that he can’t afford a violin suitable to his talents; not even the racism inherent in the world of classical music.
When he discovers that his beat-up, family fiddle is actually a priceless Stradivarius, all his dreams suddenly seem within reach, and together, Ray and his violin take the world by storm. But on the eve of the renowned and cutthroat Tchaikovsky Competition—the Olympics of classical music—the violin is stolen, a ransom note for five million dollars left in its place. Without it, Ray feels like he's lost a piece of himself. As the competition approaches, Ray must not only reclaim his precious violin, but prove to himself—and the world—that no matter the outcome, there has always been a truly great musician within him.
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Critic reviews
A Good Morning America GMA Book Club Pick! • ONE OF THE WASHINGTON POST'S BEST MYSTERY BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A Best Book of the Year: NPR, GOODREADS, Air Mail, Book Riot • A CrimeReads Best Mystery Book of the Year
A MOST ANTICPIATED BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Seattle Times, Goodreads, The Millions
A Medium Most Exciting Book Releases of the Year • Pop Sugar: 35 Must-Read Thrillers and Mystery Books to Keep You Chasing Clues • A Publishers Weekly Top Ten Mystery/Thriller
"Slocumb imbues his character's life with so much authenticity in the details, details that anyone who has played a stringed instrument, or played in a professional ensemble, will recognize. . . . Where Slocumb shines ... is in the passages where he shows Ray's grit. . . . [Brendan Slocumb] has plenty of brio to share with readers as well as listeners."—NPR
“Such a page-turner . . . a musical bildungsroman cleverly contained within a literary thriller. . . . Slocumb isn’t too different from his protagonist: a natural. He easily conjures the thrill of mastering a tough musical passage and the tinnitus-like torture of everyday racism.”—The New York Times
“When I opened Brendan Slocumb’s debut novel, The Violin Conspiracy, I was immediately transported to a place I’d never been, surrounded by characters I’d never met. In the crowded world of fiction, that’s no small accomplishment. . . . Slocumb has orchestrated an engaging and suspenseful story about an aspiring musician and his great-great-grandfather’s violin. . . . The Violin Conspiracy is so wonderfully written, especially its descriptions of music, that at times I questioned whether I was reading or listening to a concert. . . . Slocumb is equally adept at suspense, whether he’s conveying the ticktock of the main mystery or the heart-pounding, fist-clenching realities Ray has to face as a young Black man in America. This novel, which will keep readers on the edge of their seats until the very last page, is sure to be a favorite in 2022.”—The Washington Post
Featured Article: Best of the Year—The 13 Best Debuts of 2022
Looking back, it is hard to ignore the impact made by so many debut novelists in distinguishing 2022’s listening scene. We feel the untapped magic and momentum that radiate from debut novels often generate the buzz that defines a year and creates its most electric literary moments. Ranging from brooding, stormy stories to bubbly, heartfelt listens, these fresh voices each uniquely made a big splash in 2022.

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- A Novel
- By: Jessica Brockmole
- Narrated by: Elle Newlands, Katy Townsend, Lincoln Hoppe, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
March 1912: 24-year-old Elspeth Dunn, a published poet, has never seen the world beyond her home on Scotland’s remote Isle of Skye. So she is astonished when her first fan letter arrives, from a college student, David Graham, in far-away America. As the two strike up a correspondence - sharing their favorite books, wildest hopes, and deepest secrets - their exchanges blossom into friendship, and eventually into love. June 1940: At the start of World War II, Elspeth’s daughter, Margaret, has fallen for a pilot in the Royal Air Force. Her mother warns her against seeking love in wartime, an admonition Margaret doesn’t understand....
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Timeless, lyrical, heart-wrenching
- By Mary on 04-06-15
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Forever
- By: Pete Hamill
- Narrated by: Stevie Ray Dallimore
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
From the shores of Ireland, Cormac O'Connor sets out on a fateful journey to avenge the deaths of his parents and honor the code of his ancestors. In return for aiding an African shaman who was brought to America in chains, Cormac is given an otherworldly gift: He will live forever - as long as he never leaves the island of Manhattan.
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Great, but even better Unabridged
- By Kenneth R. Malcomson on 01-24-05
By: Pete Hamill
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The Fire Concerto
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Landenwich
- Narrated by: Katrina Lenk
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Clara Bishop hasn’t touched a piano since a concert hall fire nearly took her life a decade ago, ending her career as a rising star in the world of classical music. Significantly scarred and unable to play, she has turned away from everything and everyone associated with music, especially her ruthless mentor Madame, whom Clara blames for her injuries. Her life is upended when Madame dies, leaving Clara an unexpected inheritance: an ornate nineteenth-century metronome with a cryptic message hidden inside.
By: Sarah Landenwich
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Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe
- A Novel
- By: Heather Webber
- Narrated by: Stephanie Willis, Bethany Lind, Nicholas Techosky
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Nestled in the mountain shadows of Alabama lies the little town of Wicklow. It is here that Anna Kate has returned to bury her beloved Granny Zee, owner of the Blackbird Café. It was supposed to be a quick trip to close the café and settle her grandmother’s estate, but despite her best intentions to avoid forming ties or even getting to know her father’s side of the family, Anna Kate finds herself inexplicably drawn to the quirky Southern town her mother ran away from so many years ago, and the mysterious blackbird pie everybody can’t stop talking about.
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Relaxing, interesting, sweet.
- By Josie Cochrane on 07-27-19
By: Heather Webber
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The Thirteenth Tale
- A Novel
- By: Diane Setterfield
- Narrated by: Bianca Amato, Jill Tanner
- Length: 15 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
All children mythologize their birth... So begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter's beloved collection of stories, long famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale. The enigmatic Winter has always kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she summons a biographer to tell the truth about her extraordinary life: Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth remains an ever-present pain.
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Simply Amazing Story--2 missing chapters
- By JE on 01-28-10
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The Shadow of the Wind
- By: Carlos Ruiz Zafón
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 18 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Barcelona, 1945: Just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes on his 11th birthday to find that he can no longer remember his mother's face. To console his only child, Daniel's widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona's guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again.
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Have the book handy
- By Rebecca on 07-17-05
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Long Past Summer
- By: Noué Kirwan
- Narrated by: Nicola Lambo
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Mikaela Marchand is living the polished life she always planned for: a successful New York lawyer, with a promotion in her sights and a devoted boyfriend by her side. She’s come a long way from the meek teen she was growing up in small town Georgia, but the memory of her adolescence isn’t far—in fact, it’s splashed across a massive billboard in Times Square. An old photograph of Mikaela and her former best friend, Julie, has landed on the cover of a high-profile fashion magazine advertised all over the city. And when Julie files a lawsuit, Mikaela is caught in the middle.
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Narration problematic
- By shannon chandler on 08-19-22
By: Noué Kirwan
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Missing White Woman
- By: Kellye Garrett
- Narrated by: Ariel Blake
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It was supposed to be a romantic getaway weekend in New York City. Breanna’s new boyfriend, Ty, took care of everything—the train tickets, the dinner reservations, the rented four-story luxury rowhouse in Jersey City with a beautiful view of the Manhattan skyline. But when Bree comes downstairs their final morning, she’s shocked. There’s a stranger laying dead in the foyer, and Ty is nowhere to be found.
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I wanted to love it
- By Christian_and_Clean_Reads on 06-20-24
By: Kellye Garrett
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The Golden Spoon
- A Novel
- By: Jessa Maxwell
- Narrated by: Andrea Emmes, Andy Garcia, Graham Halstead, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Every summer for the past ten years, six awe-struck bakers have descended on the grounds of Grafton, the leafy and imposing Vermont estate that is not only the filming site for “Bake Week” but also the childhood home of the show’s famous host, celebrated baker Betsy Martin.
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Terrible Narration
- By Laura Casey on 03-12-23
By: Jessa Maxwell
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Just Mercy
- A Story of Justice and Redemption
- By: Bryan Stevenson
- Narrated by: Bryan Stevenson
- Length: 11 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.
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Made me question justice, peers and myself.
- By Kristy VL on 04-17-15
By: Bryan Stevenson
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The Second Chance Book Club
- By: Stephanie Butland
- Narrated by: Hannah Wood
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
September is at her wits' end. There's never enough money to support her boyfriend and herself. September has nothing to look forward to. Then the letter comes. September has inherited a house from a great-aunt she never knew she had. It would make sense to sell it. But when sees the place - the orange gate, the garden, the tree, the bumble-bee door knocker - she doesn't want to let it go. Not yet. Then the members of the book club arrive, and she begins to discover the story of the family she didn't know. And to make new friends.
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Loved It!
- By Regina on 06-13-25
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The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
- By: Dawnie Walton
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards, Bahni Turpin, James Langton, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Opal is a fiercely independent young woman pushing against the grain in her style and attitude, Afro-punk before that term existed. Coming of age in Detroit, she can’t imagine settling for a 9-to-5 job—despite her unusual looks, Opal believes she can be a star. So when the aspiring British singer/songwriter Neville Charles discovers her at a bar’s amateur night, she takes him up on his offer to make rock music together for the fledgling Rivington Records.
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Outstanding and timely
- By Darrell HANSCHEN on 04-26-21
By: Dawnie Walton
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The Boy from the Sea
- A Novel
- By: Garrett Carr
- Narrated by: Stanley Townsend
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Ireland 1973, a baby boy is found on the beach of a close-knit fishing village. Fisherman Ambrose Bonnar offers to bring the child into his own family: his son, Declan, wife, Christine, and up the lane, Christine's sister and aging father. The townspeople remain fascinated by the baby, now named Brendan, as he grows into a strange yet charismatic young man.
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A Rrespite
- By Penny Reeder on 05-31-25
By: Garrett Carr
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Disappearing Earth
- A novel
- By: Julia Phillips
- Narrated by: Ilyana Kadushin
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the Kamchatka peninsula at the northeastern edge of Russia, two girls - sisters, eight and 11 - go missing. In the ensuing weeks, then months, the police investigation turns up nothing. Echoes of the disappearance reverberate across a tightly woven community, with the fear and loss felt most deeply among its women. Taking us through a year in Kamchatka, Disappearing Earth enters with astonishing emotional acuity the worlds of a cast of richly drawn characters, all connected by the crime: a witness, a neighbor, a detective, a mother.
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The setting is completely unique!
- By Kelly on 06-25-19
By: Julia Phillips
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One of Our Kind
- A novel
- By: Nicola Yoon
- Narrated by: Nicole Lewis
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Jasmyn and King Williams move their family to the planned Black utopia of Liberty, California hoping to find a community of like-minded people, a place where their growing family can thrive. King settles in at once, embracing the Liberty ethos, including the luxe wellness center at the top of the hill, which proves to be the heart of the community. But Jasmyn struggles to find her place. She expected to find liberals and social justice activists striving for racial equality, but Liberty residents seem more focused on booking spa treatments and ignoring the world’s troubles.
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Okay book, bad editing
- By Renee A. Kaplowitz on 06-13-24
By: Nicola Yoon
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Bug Hollow
- A Novel
- By: Michelle Huneven
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Sally Samuelson was eight years old, her golden boy brother Ellis went missing the summer he graduated high school. Ellis finally turned up at the bucolic Bug Hollow, a last gasp of the beautiful Northern California counterculture in the seventies. He had found joy in the communal life there, but died in a freak accident weeks later. From that point, the world of the Samuelsons never spins on the same axis, especially after Julia, Ellis’s girlfriend from Bug Hollow, shows up pregnant on their doorstep.
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Breezy but not deep
- By Mother Of Hope on 06-24-25
By: Michelle Huneven
inspiring
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Wonderful
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Powerful piece of art
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highly recommend
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Loved
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Great story. Great narrator. Great message.
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Awesome, needed and enjoyed!
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A heartbreaking, gut wrenching, eye opening view of the struggles that challenge many creative people overtime. I loved the musical transitions throughout. I strongly suspected the reality of the struggles. Excellent! Thank you.
Music for the Soul
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The impecable performance reading coupled with the story's characters and plot flawlessly and swiftly glided like a violin concerto. A great read!
A Unique and Interesting Story! Loved It!!
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Wonderful story!
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