Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
The Godmother  By  cover art

The Godmother

By: Hannelore Cayre, Stephanie Smee - translator
Narrated by: Julia Franklin
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $19.49

Buy for $19.49

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

A taut and darkly funny account of an unusual woman and her voyage into the underground ecosystem of crime and justice in contemporary France.

Meet Patience Portefeux, 53, an underpaid Franco-Arab judicial interpreter for the Ministry of Justice who specialises in telephone tapping.

Widowed after the sudden death of her husband, Patience is now wedged between university fees for her two grown-up daughters and nursing home costs for her ageing mother. She’s laboured for 25 years to keep everyone’s heads above water.

Happening upon an especially revealing set of police wiretaps ahead of all other authorities, Patience makes a life-altering decision that sees her intervening in - and infiltrating - the machinations of a massive drug deal.

She thus embarks on an entirely new career path: Patience becomes The Godmother

This is not life in the French idyll of postcards and stock photos. With a gallery of traffickers, dealers, police officers and politicians who are more real than life itself, a sharp and amusing gaze on everyday survival in contemporary France and an unforgettable woman at its centre, Hannelore Cayre’s best-selling novel shines a torchlight on a European criminal underground that has rarely been seen.

©2019 Hannelore Cayre (P)2019 Bolinda Publishing
activate_proofit_target_DT_control

What listeners say about The Godmother

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    37
  • 4 Stars
    18
  • 3 Stars
    17
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    44
  • 4 Stars
    12
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    2
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    35
  • 4 Stars
    17
  • 3 Stars
    7
  • 2 Stars
    6
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
  • CC
  • 06-25-20

Unexpectedly enthralling

I did not suspect most of the turns in this amusing, twisted story of a French translator’s windfall. While she goes about her day to day routine of work then visiting her thankless mother in the nursing home she realizes she that bit by bit she’d come upon information that can totally change her life.

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
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Had me at "my family were crooks."

This is a brilliant, and brilliantly read, wild ride along with a woman who seized the opportunity to radically change her life - albeit criminally. I highly recommend it in general, and in particular to anyone who has dealt, or is dealing, with past loss and present frustration with the elder-care system. If you like it you may wish to find the French movie "Paulette" which has a similar theme.

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
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Good book

Reader is just right and draws you into the story. Set in France but open our eyes to life of immigrants and aging.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!