Garden of Beasts

A Novel of Berlin 1936

De: Jeffery Deaver

Narrado por: Jefferson Mays

In the most ingenious and provocative thriller yet from acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Jeffery Deaver, a conscience-plagued mobster turned government hitman struggles to find his moral compass amid rampant treachery and betrayal in 1936 Berlin.

Paul Schumann, a German American living in New York City in 1936, is a mobster hitman known as much for his brilliant tactics as for taking only “righteous” assignments. But then Paul gets caught. And the arresting officer offers him a stark choice: execution or covert government service. Paul is asked to pose as a journalist covering the summer Olympics taking place in Berlin. He’s to hunt down and kill Reinhard Ernst—the ruthless architect of Hitler’s clandestine rearmament. If successful, Paul will be pardoned and given the financial means to go legit.

Paul travels to Germany, takes a room in a boarding house near the Tiergarten—the huge park in central Berlin but also, literally, the “Garden of Beasts”—and begins his hunt. In classic Deaver fashion, the next forty-eight hours are a feverish cat-and-mouse chase, as Paul stalks Ernst through Berlin while a dogged Berlin police officer and the entire Third Reich apparatus search frantically for the American.

Garden of Beasts is packed with fascinating period detail and features a cast of perfectly realized locals, Olympic athletes, and senior Nazi officials—some real, some fictional. With hairpin plot twists, the reigning “master of ticking-bomb suspense” (People) plumbs the nerve-jangling paranoia of pre-war Berlin and steers the story to a breathtaking and wholly unpredictable ending.

The novel won the Steel Dagger award for best espionage thriller of the year from the prestigious Crime Writers’ Associate in the United Kingdom.©2004 Jeffery Deaver. All rights reserved; (P)2004 Simon and Schuster Inc. All rights reserved

Engaging and gripping

This is my first Jeffrey Deaver book, and I am going to explore others. The concept of an almost "film noir" quality gangster/assassin as a protagonist is unique and it really worked in this story. The plot and the story development kept up on a fast pace and provided a look at Pre WWII Nazi Germany that we rarely see in books and movies. The action is "Indiana Jones" ish,ad the plot twists are fast and furious. My only regret is that I bought the abridged version. The reader was very good as well.

Garden of Beasts

Warning-- This is only an ABRIDGED version. As a result, a great story and an equally good reader are wasted. Find the unabridged, if you can. Otherwise, be prepared to feel a bit short- changed.

Garden of Beasts

This is your typical spy novel with the twist that the writer uses as his antihero character a contract mob killer. I believe that the plot show the killer metalmorfin into a good guy when the guys he is contract to kill turn out to be the so called beasts in the story. We learning that the nazi's are planning there mass murder. Am partial to these war stories which may or may not have happened but i would not see it as a hero. More of the ugly American noticing that they are more monster then thy self. I niether dislike or like it.