Paris Metro

De: Wendell Steavenson

Narrado por: Elisabeth Rodgers

A tense and timely debut novel set amid the terrorist attacks on Paris.

Paris Metro is the gripping story of an American journalist compelled to reexamine her convictions as terrorism threatens to engulf her family. It's 2015, and Kit is living in Paris, estranged from her Iraqi diplomat husband and raising their teenage son, Ahmed. Having spent the years since 9/11 covering the Middle East - from Baghdad after the US invasion to Syria during the refugee crisis - Kit is enjoying a quieter life. But when Charlie Hebdo is attacked and a cartoonist friend of hers is killed, and then terrorists storm the Bataclan, Kit's Parisian world is shattered. As she is drawn back into reporting, she begins to suspect that Ahmed may be running with the terrorists.

Paris Metro is a deeply moving story about the psychic effects of the Age of Terror.

©2018 Wendell Steavenson (P)2018 Recorded Books

Best listen of 2018

Intelligent, almost poetic without being opaque, intriguing and very realistic characters and settings. The kind of work that stays with me after the listening is completed. Ms. Steavenson's treatment of the realities of the Middle East rings with an authenticity that is rarely encountered. I hope she continues to write other novels. Elisabeth Rodgers' narration is superb and is perfect for this book.

If you want a detailed summary of the story, please see the Amazon book review of March 13 2018 written by "Liz."

Meh

I am a serious francophile and was recommended this book by a woman with a doctorate in French literature. I am pretty disappointed. Yes, it touches on Charlie and the Bataclan, but mostly it is a first-person narrative of a woman's globe-trotting yet somehow...kind of boring life. There's not much of a story here, no real antagonists or protagonists, and that's probably the point. Unfortunately the lack of structure bored me and I can't really recommended the book.