Jeffery Deaver's Garden of Beasts introduces anti-hero Paul Schumann, a notorious rubout man for the New York Mafia known for his cold and professional approach to his job. But the jig is up when he is duped by high-ranking feds who give him a choice--prison or one more impossible job: assassinate the man who's running Hitler's plan for rearming Germany. The hard-nosed German-American lands on the streets of Berlin where immediately the best-laid plans of the United States Government go awry. Schumman finds himself in a city living in fear, tracked by Berlin's best homicide detective. As the intricate chase wears on, both men will discover that the greatest evil is the ascendant Nazi party.

Deaver's novel, equal parts noir thriller and historical extrapolation, is a page-turner that offers a twisting visceral experience of the tension in Berlin during that fateful summer. He draws sympathetic portraits of everyday Germans caught between duty to country and their consciences. Into this mix, Deaver drops his coldly dangerous hitman who brawls with brownshirts, chums with Olympic athletes, collaborates with criminals, fraternizes with poets, and discovers the hero inside his hardened soul. --Jeremy Pugh

Amazon.com Interview
When starting a new book by author Jeffery Deaver, expect to have the wool pulled over your eyes. His plots twist and turn and juke and jive like no others, never ending as expected and always including a jaw-dropping plot development. His latest effort, Garden of Beasts, is no exception. Amazon.com caught up with Deaver to discuss plotting, characters, and the perils of soap opera acting.


From Publishers Weekly
Deaver fans expect the unexpected from this prodigiously talented thriller writer, and the creator of the Lincoln Rhyme series and other memorable yarns (The Blue Nowhere, etc.) doesn't disappoint with his 19th novel, this time offering a deliciously twisty tale set in Nazi Berlin. The book's hero is a mob "button man," or hit man, Paul Schumann, who's nabbed in the act in New York City but given an alternative to the electric chair: to go to Berlin undercover as a journalist writing about the upcoming Olympics, in order to assassinate Col. Reinhard Ernst, the chief architect of Hitler's militarization, seen as a threat to American interests. A German spy onboard Paul's transatlantic liner grows suspicious and sends a warning to Germany before Paul discovers and kills him. Then in Berlin, Paul, en route to meet his contact, kills a second suspicious man who may be a storm trooper, setting Insp. Willi Kohl of the Berlin police, or Kripo, on his trail. Deaver weaves the three manhunts—Paul after his target, Kohl after Paul and the Nazi hierarchy after Paul—with a deft hand, bringing to frightening life the Berlin of 1936, a city on the brink of madness. Top Nazis, including Hitler, Himmler and Göring, make colorful cameos, but it's the smart, shaded-gray characterizations of the principals that anchor the exciting plot. An affecting love affair between Paul and his German landlady goes in surprising directions, as do the main plot lines, which move outside Berlin as heroes become villains and vice versa. This is prime Deaver, which means prime entertainment. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From School Library Journal
Adult/High School - Paul Schumann, professional hit man, is arrested by the U.S. government. He is offered a deal: he can go to prison or he can take on the job of assassinating the man who controls Hitler's rearmament. Schumann leaves for Germany. He is hounded by the German police even as he is watched or chased by every kind of control group, including the Gestapo and Hitler's Youth. He gets some help from locals as he focuses on his target, Colonel Ernst. After complicated and unforeseen events, the story leads to an ending filled with surprises. Filling the tale with historical facts skillfully woven into the fiction, Deaver deftly places the characters into the chaos of 1936. American slang, German-language translations, food, and clothing are among the details used to create the setting. Individual characters clearly serve as examples of typical people caught up in the confusion and fear felt by the general population as they witness the rise of Hitler. Fans of action, adventure, or history will enjoy this fast-paced, tightly plotted story. - Pam Johnson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From AudioFile
Jeffery Deaver provides a visceral experience of the tension in Berlin when German citizens lavishly hosted the 1936 Humanitarian Olympic Games while, simultaneously, Hitler secretly prepared for war and the extermination of Jews. Jefferson Mays presents a wide range of characters with distinction and aplomb. There's Paul, a hit-man for the New York Luciano Mob; Willi Kohl, a senior investigator in the Kripo, the Berlin criminal police; Reinhard Ernst, Hitler's rearmament czar; Leisel, a barmaid with a secret; Kathe, who helps Paul discover the hero inside his hardened soul; and the Fischer brothers, caught up in the abominable Waltham Study. With Mays's reading, this story becomes a caustic tale of the dangers of ambivalence and appeasement in the face of evil. K.A.T. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Here's a real change of pace from the author of the Lincoln Rhyme series: a thriller set in 1936, the year of the Berlin Olympics. Paul Schumann, born in Germany but living in the U.S., is a hit man for the mob. Apprehended by government agents, he's given a tough choice: spend the rest of his life in prison or go to Germany and assassinate a key member of Hitler's Third Reich. Although not known for historical fiction, Deaver takes the new genre in stride, subtly and plausibly working real people into the tale while delivering his signature sense of story, depth of characterization, and sharply rendered dialogue. Readers looking for the author's usual startling plot twists will not be disappointed, either. Deaver's audience will be pleased with this one, but it will be an equally big hit with fans of such Nazi-era thrillers as Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy or Robert Harris' Fatherland. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description
In the most ingenious and provocative thriller yet from the 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: prison 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; if he refuses the job, his fate will be Sing Sing and the electric chair. Paul travels to Germany, takes a room in a boardinghouse 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 prewar Berlin and steers the story to a breathtaking and wholly unpredictable ending.


Download Description
"In the most ingenious and provocative thriller yet from the 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: prison 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; if he refuses the job, his fate will be Sing Sing and the electric chair. Paul travels to Germany, takes a room in a boardinghouse 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 prewar Berlin and steers the story to a breathtaking and wholly unpredictable ending. "


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One As soon as he stepped into the dim apartment he knew he was dead. He wiped sweat off his palm, looking around the place, which was quiet as a morgue, except for the faint sounds of Hell's Kitchen traffic late at night and the ripple of the greasy shade when the swiveling Monkey Ward fan turned its hot breath toward the window. The whole scene was off. Out of kilter... Malone was supposed to be here, smoked on booze, sleeping off a binge. But he wasn't. No bottles of corn anywhere, not even the smell of bourbon, the punk's only drink. And it looked like he hadn't been around for a while. The New York Sun on the table was two days old. It sat next to a cold ashtray and a glass with a blue halo of dried milk halfway up the side. He clicked the light on. Well, there was a side door, like he'd noted yesterday from the hallway, looking over the place. But it was nailed shut. And the window that let onto the fire escape? Brother, sealed nice and tight with chicken wire he hadn't been able to see from the alley. The other window was open but was also forty feet above cobblestones. No way out... And where was Malone? Paul Schumann wondered. Malone was on the lam, Malone was drinking beer in Jersey, Malone was a statue on a concrete base underneath a Red Hook pier. Didn't matter. Whatever'd happened to the boozehound, Paul realized, the punk had been nothing more than bait, and the wire that he'd be here tonight was pure bunk. In the hallway outside, a scuffle of feet. A clink of metal. Out of kilter... Paul set his pistol on the room's one table, took out his handkerchief and mopped his face. The searing air from the deadly Midwest heat wave had made its way to New York. But a man can't walk around without a jacket when he's carrying a 1911 Colt .45 in his back waistband and so Paul was condemned to wear a suit. It was his single-button, single-breasted gray linen. The white-cotton, collar-attached shirt was drenched. Another shuffle from outside in the hallway, where they'd be getting ready for him. A whisper, another clink. Paul thought about looking out the window but was afraid he'd get shot in the face. He wanted an open casket at his wake and he didn't know any morticians good enough to fix bullet or bird-shot damage. Who was gunning for him? It wasn't Luciano, of course, the man who'd hired him to touch off Malone. It wasn't Meyer Lansky either. They were dangerous, yeah, but not snakes. Paul'd always done top-notch work for them, never leaving a bit of evidence that could link them to the touch-off. Besides, if either of them wanted Paul gone, they wouldn't need to set him up with a bum job. He'd simply be gone. So who'd snagged him? If it was O'Banion or Rothstein from Williamsburg or Valenti from Bay Ridge, well, he'd be dead in a few minutes. If it was dapper Tom Dewey, the death would take a bit longer -- whatever time was involved to convict him and get him into the electric chair up in Sing Sing. More voices in the hall. More clicks, metal seating against metal. But looking at it one way, he reflected wryly, everything was silk so far; he was still alive. And thirsty as hell. He walked to the Kelvinator and opened it. Three bottles of milk -- two of them curdled -- and a box of Kraft cheese and one of Sunsweet tenderized peaches. Several Royal Crown colas. He found an opener and removed the cap from a bottle of the soft drink. From somewhere he heard a radio. It was playing "Stormy Weather." Sitting down at the table again, he noticed himself in the dusty mirror on the wall above a chipped enamel washbasin. His pale blue eyes weren't as alarmed as they ought to be, he supposed. His face, though, was weary. He was a large man -- over six feet and weighing more than two hundred pounds. His hair was from his mother's side, reddish brown; his fair complexion from his father's German ancestors. The skin was a bit marred -- not from pox but from knuckles in his younger days and Everlast gloves more recently. Concrete and canvas too. Sipping the soda pop. Spicier than Coca-Cola. He liked it. Paul considered his situation. If it was O'Banion or Rothstein or Valenti, well, none of them gave a good goddamn about Malone, a crazy riveter from the shipyards turned punk mobster, who'd killed a beat cop's wife and done so in a pretty unpleasant way. He'd threatened more of the same to any law that gave him trouble. Every boss in the area, from the Bronx to Jersey, was shocked at what he'd done. So even if one of them wanted to touch off Paul, why not wait until after he'd knocked off Malone? Which meant it was probably Dewey. The idea of being stuck in the caboose till he was executed depressed him. Yet, truth be told, in his heart Paul wasn't too torn up about getting nabbed. Like when he was a kid and would jump impulsively into fights against two or three kids bigger than he was, sooner or later he'd eventually pick the wrong punks and end up with a broken bone. He'd known the same thing about his present career: that ultimately a Dewey or an O'Banion would bring him down. Thinking of one of his father's favorite expressions: "On the best day, on the worst day, the sun finally sets." The round man would snap his colorful suspenders and add, "Cheer up. Tomorrow's a whole new horse race." He jumped when the phone rang. Paul looked at the black Bakelite for a long moment. On the seventh ring, or the eighth, he answered. "Yeah?" "Paul," a crisp, young voice said. No neighborhood slur. "You know who it is." "I'm up the hall in another apartment. There're six of us here. Another half dozen on the street." Twelve? Paul felt an odd calm. Nothing he could do about twelve. They'd get him one way or the other. He sipped more of the Royal Crown. He was so damn thirsty. The fan wasn't doing anything but moving the heat from one side of the room to the other. He asked, "You working for the boys from Brooklyn or the West Side? Just curious." "Listen to me, Paul. Here's what you're going to do. You only have two guns on you, right? The Colt. And that little twenty-two. The others are back in your apartment?" Paul laughed. "That's right." "You're going to unload them and lock the slide of the Colt open. Then walk to the window that's not sealed and pitch them out. Then you're going to take your jacket off, drop it on the floor, open the door and stand in the middle of the room with your hands up in the air. Stretch 'em way up high." "You'll shoot me," he said. "You're living on borrowed time anyway, Paul. But if you do what I say you might stay alive a little longer." The caller hung up. He dropped the hand piece into the cradle. He sat motionless for a moment, recalling a very pleasant night a few weeks ago. Marion and he had gone to Coney Island for miniature golf and hot dogs and beer, to beat the heat. Laughing, she'd dragged him to a fortune teller at the amusement park. The fake gypsy had read his cards and told him a lot of things. The woman had missed this particular event, though, which you'd think should've showed up somewhere in the reading if she was worth her salt. Marion...He'd never told her what he did for a living. Only that he owned a gym and he did business occasionally with some guys who had questionable pasts. But he'd never told her more. He realized suddenly that he'd been looking forward to some kind of future with her. She was a dime-a-dance girl at a club on the West Side, studying fashion design during the day. She'd be working now; she usually went till 1 or 2 A.M. How would she find out what happened to him? If it was Dewey he'd probably be able to call her. If it was the boys from Williamsburg, no call. Nothing. The phone began ringing again. Paul ignored it. He slipped the clip from his big gun and unchambered the round that was in the receiver, then he emptied the cartridges out of the revolver. He walked to the window and tossed the pistols out one at a time. He didn't hear them land. Finishing the soda pop, he took his jacket off, dropped it on the floor. He started for the door but paused. He went back to the Kelvinator and got another Royal Crown. He drank it down. Then he wiped his face again, opened the front door, stepped back and lifted his arms. The phone stopped ringing. "This's called The Room," said the gray-haired man in a pressed white uniform, taking a seat on a small couch. "You were never here," he added with a cheerful confidence that meant there was no debate. He added, "And you never heard about it." It was 11 P.M. They'd brought Paul here directly from Malone's. It was a private town house on the Upper East Side, though most of the rooms on the ground floor contained desks and telephones and Teletype machines, like in an office. Only in the parlor were there divans and armchairs. On the walls here were pictures of new and old navy ships. A globe sat in the corner. FDR looked down at him from a spot above a marble mantel. The room was wonderfully cold. A private house that had air-conditioning. Imagine. Still handcuffed, Paul had been deposited in a comfortable leather armchair. The two younger men who'd escorted him out of Malone's apartment, also in white uniforms, sat beside him and slightly behind. The one who'd spoken to him on the phone was named Andrew Avery, a man with rosy cheeks and deliberate, sharp eyes. Eyes of a boxer, though Paul knew he'd never been in a fistfight in his life. The other was Vincent Manielli, dark, with a voice that told Paul they'd probably grown up in the same section of Brooklyn. Manielli and Avery didn't look much older than the stickball kids in front of Paul's building, but they were, of all things, lieutenants in the navy. When Paul had been in France the lieutenants he'd served under had been grown men. Their pistols were in holsters but the leather flaps were undone and they kept their hands near their weapons. The older officer, sitting across from him on the couch, was pretty high up -- a naval commander, if the gingerbread on his uniform was the same as it'd been twenty years ago. The door opened and an attractive woman in a white navy uniform entered. The name on her blouse was Ruth Willets. She handed him a file. "Everything's in there." "Thank you, Yeoman." As she left, without glancing at Paul, the officer opened the file, extracted two pieces of thin paper, read them carefully. When he finished, he looked up. "I'm James Gordon. Office of Naval Intelligence. They call me Bull." "This is your headquarters?" Paul asked. "'The Room'?" The commander ignored him and glanced at the other two. "You introduced yourselves yet?" "Yes, sir." "There was no trouble?" "None, sir." Avery was doing the talking. "Take his cuffs off." Avery did so while Manielli stood with his hand near his gun, edgily eyeing Paul's gnarled knuckles. Manielli had fighter's hands too. Avery's were pink as a dry-goods clerk's. The door swung open again and another man walked inside. He was in his sixties but as lean and tall as that young actor Marion and Paul had seen in a couple of films, Jimmy Stewart. Paul frowned. He knew the face from articles in the Times and the Herald Tribune. "Senator?" The man responded, but to Gordon: "You said he was smart. I didn't know he was well-informed." As if he wasn't happy about being recognized. The Senator looked Paul up and down, sat and lit a stubby cigar. A moment later yet another man entered, about the same age as the Senator, wearing a white linen suit that was savagely wrinkled. The body it encased was large and soft. He carried a walking stick. He glanced once at Paul then, without a word to anyone, he retreated to the corner. He too looked familiar but Paul couldn't place him. "Now," Gordon continued. "Here's the situation, Paul. We know you've worked for Luciano, we know you've worked for Lansky, a couple of the others. And we know what you do for them." "Yeah, what's that?" "You're a button man, Paul," Manielli said brightly, as if he'd been looking forward to saying it. Gordon said, "Last March Jimmy Coughlin saw you..." He frowned. "What do you people say? You don't say 'kill.'" Paul, thinking: Some of us people say "chill off." Paul himself used "touch off." It was the phrase that Sergeant Alvin York used to describe killing enemy soldiers during the War. It made Paul feel less like a punk to use the term that a war hero did. But, of course, Paul Schumann didn't share any of this at the moment. Gordon continued. "Jimmy saw you kill Arch Dimici on March thirteenth in a warehouse on the Hudson." Paul had staked out the place for four hours before Dimici showed up. He'd been positive the man was alone. Jimmy must've been sleeping one off behind some crates when Paul arrived. "Now, from what they tell me, Jimmy isn't the most reliable witness. But we've got some hard evidence. A few revenue boys picked him up for selling hooch and he made a deal to rat on you. Seems he'd picked up a shell casing at the scene and was keeping it for insurance. No prints're on it -- you're too smart for that. But Hoover's people ran a test on your Colt. The scratches from the extractor're the same." Hoover? The FBI was involved? And they'd already tested the gun. He'd pitched it out of Malone's window less than an hour ago. Paul rocked his upper and lower teeth against each other. He was furious with himself. He'd searched for a half hour to find that damn casing at the Dimici job and had finally concluded it'd fallen through the cracks in the floor into the Hudson. "So we made inquiries and heard you were being paid five hundred dollars to..." Gordon hesitated. Touch off. "...eliminate Malone tonight." "Like hell I was," Paul said, laughing. "You got yourself some bum wire. I just went to visit him. Where is he, by the way?" Gordon paused. "Mr. Malone will no longer be a threat to the constabulary or the citizens of New York City." "Sounds like somebody owes you five C-notes." Bull Gordon didn't laugh. "You're in Dutch, Paul, and you can't beat the rap. So here's what we're offering. Like they say in those used-Studebaker ads: this's a one-time-only offer. Take it or leave it. We don't negotiate." The Senator finally spoke. "Tom Dewey wants you as bad as he wants the rest of the scum on his list." The special prosecutor was on a divine mission to clean up organized crime in New York. Crime boss Lucky Luciano, the Italian Five Families in the city and the Jewish syndicate of Meyer Lansky were his main targets. Dewey was dogged and smart and he was winning conviction after conviction. "But he's agreed to give us first dibs on you." "Forget it. I'm not a stool pigeon." Gordon said, "We're not asking you to be one. That's not what this is about." "Then what do you want me to do?" A pause for a moment. The Senator nodded toward Gordon, who said, "You're a button man, Paul. What do you think? We want you to kill somebody." Copyright © 2004 by Jeffery Deaver

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In the most ingenious and provocative thriller yet from the 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: prison 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; if he refuses the job, his fate will be Sing Sing and the electric chair.

Paul travels to Germany, takes a room in a boardinghouse 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 prewar Berlin and steers the story to a breathtaking and wholly unpredictable ending.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Deaver fans expect the unexpected from this prodigiously talented thriller writer, and the creator of the Lincoln Rhyme series and other memorable yarns (The Blue Nowhere, etc.) doesn't disappoint with his 19th novel, this time offering a deliciously twisty tale set in Nazi Berlin. The book's hero is a mob "button man," or hit man, Paul Schumann, who's nabbed in the act in New York City but given an alternative to the electric chair: to go to Berlin undercover as a journalist writing about the upcoming Olympics, in order to assassinate Col. Reinhard Ernst, the chief architect of Hitler's militarization, seen as a threat to American interests. A German spy onboard Paul's transatlantic liner grows suspicious and sends a warning to Germany before Paul discovers and kills him. Then in Berlin, Paul, en route to meet his contact, kills a second suspicious man who may be a storm trooper, setting Insp. Willi Kohl of the Berlin police, or Kripo, on his trail. Deaver weaves the three manhunts-Paul after his target, Kohl after Paul and the Nazi hierarchy after Paul-with a deft hand, bringing to frightening life the Berlin of 1936, a city on the brink of madness. Top Nazis, including Hitler, Himmler and Gering, make colorful cameos, but it's the smart, shaded-gray characterizations of the principals that anchor the exciting plot. An affecting love affair between Paul and his German landlady goes in surprising directions, as do the main plot lines, which move outside Berlin as heroes become villains and vice versa. This is prime Deaver, which means prime entertainment. Agent, Deborah Schneider. (July) Forecast: S&S is betting big on this title, with a 250,000 first printing. A 14-city author tour and Deaver's increasingly hot rep should ensure a solid sell-through. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Narrator Jefferson Mays's polished performance amplifies the suspense in both the abridged and unabridged versions of this historical thriller by the author of the popular Lincoln Rhyme series. Paul Schumann, a German American living in New York City in 1936, is a conscientious Mafia hit man known for agreeing to dispose of only the true dregs of society. When he is captured by the Feds, he is given an alternative to prison-travel to Berlin to assassinate Reinhardt Ernst, the man behind Nazi Germany's rearmament. Getting to know many of the locals while posing as a reporter covering the Olympics, Paul glimpses firsthand the horrors perpetrated by Hitler and his National Socialist Party. Finding himself the victim of a double-cross, Paul must choose between saving himself and completing his mission. While the abridgment includes most of the important plot lines in this fast-moving tale, the listener misses out on Deaver's poignant characterizations of the ordinary German citizens sickened at what their beloved country is becoming under Hitler. The unabridged program is recommended for all public libraries.-Beth Farrell, Portage Cty. Dist. Lib., OH Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

AudioFile

Set in Berlin 1936 at the start of the Olympics, Deaver's story tells of deceit, murder, and the early years of Nazi Germany. Paul Schumann, a New York City hit man who speaks flawless German, is recruited by the U.S. government to kill Reinhardt Ernst, who is in charge of Hitler's rearmament. But nothing goes right from the moment Schumann sets foot in Germany. Jefferson Mays reads this fast-paced book with slow tones that reflect the story's high level of detail. While Mays doesn't create accents, he follows all the twists as Schumann hunts Ernst while being hunted by the Berlin police. There's never a dull moment when murder and intrigue are afoot. M.B.K. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews