In the Name of Ishmael Lib/E

Review "[A] flawless reading by Grover Gardner, whose pace, nuance, and skill with Italian--and later on with French, German, and Belgian--bespeak an almost native fluency."-- "AudioFile""As Genna spins his linked stories of murder and organized crime, he weaves a web of mind games, trickery and looming threat."-- "Publishers Weekly""Can stop the reader cold with a single image."-- "New Yorker""Narrator Gardner demonstrates considerable competence and generates substantial excitement in his reading of this gripping mystery."-- "American Library Association""This wildly complex thriller, combining the precision of Day of the Jackal with the eerie paranoia of The Manchurian Candidate, concocts the ultimate conspiracy theory."-- "Booklist" Product Description Politics, terror, and spellbinding literary gamesmanship are at the heart of this daring fiction debut. Set in fogbound, wintry Milan, In the Name of Ishmael is the story of a secret cult of assassins and the two detectives who set out to reveal the true identity of Ishmael, the group's heavily protected and enigmatic leader. Expertly weaving a story from apparently unmatched threads in two separate time periods-mysterious murders, a series of seemingly unconnected assassinations, the accident that killed Princess Diana, a bizarre sadomasochistic secret society, and the death of an Italian press magnate-Genna crafts a chilling and utterly compelling tale of political conspiracy and serial murder. About the Author Giuseppe Genna was born in Milan in 1969. He has worked in Italian television and was the editor-in-chief of Poesia, a literary journal. In the Name of Ishmael is his first US publication.Ann Goldstein is the former senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.Grover Gardner is an award-winning narrator with over eight hundred titles to his credit. Named one of the Best Voices of the Century and a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, he has won three prestigious Audie Awards, was chosen Narrator of the Year for 2005 by Publishers Weekly, and has earned more than thirty Earphones Awards. From AudioFile The murder of a baby and, 40 years later, an unknown scarred adult prove to be as puzzling to the police as they are to the listener. Both occur in Milan, and the novel bounces from one to the other, usually focusing on the increasingly perplexed detectives trying to solve them. The crimes are the work of Ishmael, but what--or who--is Ishmael? The time shifts occur at climactic moments, a technique that is frustrating at times yet keeps the listener engrossed. Helping, too, is a flawless reading by Grover Gardner, whose pace, nuance, and skill with Italian--and later on with French, German, and Belgian--bespeak an almost native fluency. Evil abounds in this work, including some among the presumed good guys, but then evil may be Ishmael--or vice versa--and Gardner captures everyone's uncertainty. T.H. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine