Garden of Beasts: A Novel of Berlin 1936 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
Deaver's latest sabbatical from his Lincoln Rhyme series (The Vanished Man, 2003, etc.) sends him back before WWII to a Day of the Jackal remake with a good-guy assassin. Hitler may be nothing but a psychopathic freak, but Americans in high places are watching apprehensively as his plans to rearm Germany move forward under retired Col. Reinhard Ernst, his Plenipotentiary for Domestic Stability. It's vital that Ernst, with his encyclopedic knowledge and his keen vision of a militarized Reich, be eliminated. So the Office of Naval Intelligence, backed up by the obligatory carrot from millionaire industrialist Cyrus Clayhorn and the stick from law-enforcement agencies, sends a secret weapon on the Manhattan, the ship carrying the American athletes competing in the Berlin Olympics: Paul Schumann, a button man credited with 17 gangland executions. The plan calls for Paul to meet with Reggie Morgan, the ONI officer who'll help him get settled and provide a weapon and the inside info he'll need for a successful hit. Even aboard the Manhattan, however, things start to go wrong, and Paul's first meeting with Reggie ends with the shooting of a storm trooper whose death will surely bring the dread resources of the SS and the Gestapo down on them. As his mission spirals out of control and he hears Hitler's tirelessly efficient police closing in on him, Paul finds himself leaning more and more on people like Kathe Richter, his landlady, and Otto Webber, a raffish black marketeer, and wondering whether Deaver's well-earned reputation for boffo surprises will give him a chance to fire that rifle after all. Just the thing for readers who'd like to channel their frustration over the current geopoliticalmess into the traditional American values of cleverness, adaptability, and vigilante violence in the best of all possible causes. First printing of 250,000; author tour. Agent: Deborah Schneider/Gelfman Schneider
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