• City of Thieves

  • A Novel
  • By: David Benioff
  • Narrated by: Ron Perlman
  • Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (6,832 ratings)

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City of Thieves  By  cover art

City of Thieves

By: David Benioff
Narrated by: Ron Perlman
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Editorial reviews

Two unlikely young men charged with desertion and facing execution in the besieged city of Leningrad are charged with an impossible task: they can have their freedom if they can find a dozen eggs for the wedding cake of a powerful colonel's daughter. The two make an odd couple: one a scrawny Jewish outsider, the other an erudite charmer, and their journey takes them from the war-torn city to the snow-covered countryside. Sound like the basis of a classic movie? That might be because the author, David Benioff, is a successful screenwriter, and City of Thieves is halfway between movie-script and roman-a-clef, between airport blockbuster and serious literature.

It's a difficult balancing act, but it succeeds here in no small part due to Ron Perlman's unforgettable narration. His voice is as full of character as his celebrated face, and his bar-room drawl brings a hard-boiled noir quality to the narration. It's a voice dripping in contraband and cordite, easily navigating the Russian names and injecting a sly, seductive humor into the dialogue that offsets the occasional lapse into sentimentality. It's a fantastic performance that succeeds in tying together the disparate elements of this rich tale.

Perlman also takes great relish in conveying the myriad of tiny details that Benioff weaves into the narrative, and which lend a cinematic quality to the work. Indeed, the author's screenwriting background is evident throughout: there's a tightly-constructed plot that never loses a sense of forward propulsion, even during the quieter moments; there is a skilful interweaving of film-school tropes the buddy movie, the coming-of-age tale, the WWII film. And there's that attention to detail. Although Benioff has clearly done his research, it's the off-beat imagery that brings to life the reality of living in a besieged city: concrete dragon's teeth are arranged to hinder the approach of enemy tanks; leather boots still bloody from the feet of the previous owners; malnourished children's bones break easily.

A slightly superfluous framing narrative alerts us to the novel's more literary aspirations. The art of storytelling is central to this tale, and the narrative brims over with literary references: doomed poets, scabrous novelists, callous propagandists. The picaresque plot recalls A Hero of Our Time, and the main action begins with a German parachutist's corpse drifting down the empty streets, an image halfway between a movie storyboard and Lord of the Flies just one of many evocative set-pieces in this highly entertaining adventure. Dafydd Phillips

Publisher's summary

From the critically acclaimed author of The 25th Hour and When the Nines Roll Over and co-creator of the HBO series Game of Thrones, a captivating novel about war, courage, survival - and a remarkable friendship that ripples across a lifetime.

During the Nazis’ brutal siege of Leningrad, Lev Beniov is arrested for looting and thrown into the same cell as a handsome deserter named Kolya. Instead of being executed, Lev and Kolya are given a shot at saving their own lives by complying with an outrageous directive: secure a dozen eggs for a powerful Soviet colonel to use in his daughter’s wedding cake. In a city cut off from all supplies and suffering unbelievable deprivation, Lev and Kolya embark on a hunt through the dire lawlessness of Leningrad and behind enemy lines to find the impossible.

By turns insightful and funny, thrilling and terrifying, the New York Times best seller City of Thieves is a gripping, cinematic World War II adventure and an intimate coming-of-age story with an utterly contemporary feel for how boys become men.

©2008 David Benioff (P)2008 Penguin

Critic reviews

"The novel tells a refreshingly traditional tale, driven by an often ingenious plot...[Benioff] shifts tone with perfect control - no recent novel I have read travels so quickly and surely between registers, from humor to devastation.” (The New York Times Book Review)

“This spellbinding story perfectly blends tragedy and comedy.” (USA Today)

“Splendid...Benioff has produced a funny, sad, and thrilling novel.” (Entertainment Weekly)

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What listeners say about City of Thieves

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Loved it!

Great story. Great narration. Should be a movie soon. Hard to stop listening to it.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

So good

This book was so good. Good story, couldnt stop listening to this book until it was finished.

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Amazing story, must listen

Benioff is a natural storyteller that paints a vivid world and develops a funny, tragic and terrifying tale.

One of my all time favorite books and Ron Pearlman does the book justice.

I just wish Benioff would write more!!! Thank you for this classic.

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A beautiful story!

This story makes you believe that the human spirit will always endure and evil will never win.

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Food for the soul

Listening to this during the pandemic had an incredibly deep effect on me. The atrocities of WW2 need to never be forgotten, but the stories of brave soldiers serve as a reminder of the beauty of the human spirit. Well written and well performed, this audio book is both heart wrenching anf heart warming.

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    4 out of 5 stars

A window into life in Russia

This was an odd book in that I almost erased it 4 times. I'm glad I stuck it out
as once the story began to focus on the relationship between Lev and Kolya, it began to have heart. In the end, I'm glad I read it as it gave me a window into Russian culture and what the Russians lived through during the second World War. Having been in St. Petersburg and having seen the destruction that the German soldiers inflicted on that city alone, it was fascinating to get an eye on the people and how they were affected. I found the reader's voice somwhat irritating and monotone but perhaps the book was read that way on purpose.

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All for a cake

A gripping story set in the bleakness of the eastern front during WWII. Ron Perlman does a great job narrating even though the story does drag a bit during the middle. Things do pick up towards the end and I couldn’t stop listening!

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Great book

I listened to the whole thing in a couple days I just couldn't stop. Amazing 👌

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Completely and totally into this book

I’m not to write book reviews but I really really really enjoyed it. Exciting, funny, and somewhat romantic. I hated for it for it to end.

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Unrecreatable Period Piece

Any additional comments?

This cast of characters and their shared charisma and charm seeps through the writing and voice performance. It uses intense ironies of the high stakes for the characters mixed with the pettiness of the demands of a wedding. This is coupled with the high stakes trying to be shown towards Russia's citizens with the apathy created by the side effects of war.

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