Looking for an audiobook suggestion? Sample three of our favorites.
It’s been awhile since we last heard from McKinty’s Detective Sergeant Sean Duffy, a rare Catholic in Northern Ireland’s Royal Ulster Constabulary. This, his seventh outing, is set chiefly in 1990, and Duffy, now 39 and old in cop years, is retiring from the force after settling one last case. A 15-year-old girl has disappeared, her car found in the river; the only people who care are her mother and Duffy, a serial troublemaker. Soon, the story is infested with operatives of the IRA and the Ulster Volunteer Force, double agents, triple agents, hit squads, junkies, and murderers, all served up with mordant wit, erudition and stylistic panache. It’s another superb outing for Duffy, made all the more so by Gerard Doyle, who has narrated the entire series so far and has, for me, become inextricable from its festive, sardonic humor. A genius at accents of the British Isles, he delivers a genuine-sounding Ulster accent among others, and excels in acerbic asides and conversational exchanges, each character possessing an identifying manner and voice.
(Blackstone, Unabridged, 9-1/4 hours)
2. ‘The Art Thief,’ by Michael Finkel
Finkel tells the true story of Stéphane Breitwieser, a light-fingered Frenchman who, at 25, embarked on an astounding series of art thefts. His haul, chiefly liberated with a Swiss army knife, amounted, according to Finkel, to more than 300 pieces worth around $2 billion. Breitwieser pursued his calling, as it might be termed, from 1995 to 2001 with impunity, undetected primarily because he never sold anything — the usual route to discovery. Instead, he installed the treasures upstairs in his mother’s house, where he lived rent- and job-free with his girlfriend, who usually served as his lookout. She, however, became increasingly apprehensive and, wearied by his exploits, was not present when Breitweiser, grown reckless, was finally caught red-handed. This is a mere sketch of a book that has the momentum of a novel and culminates in a more shocking transgression than theft. Edoardo Ballerini’s smooth, undulating tenor draws us into Breitwieser’s delusions and obsession with 16th- and 17th-century art, while his empathetic pacing heightens the suspense attending the execution of the heists.
(Random House Audio, Unabridged, 5-2/3 hours)
3. ‘Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs,’ by Kerry Howley
Howley’s chilling account of the U.S. government’s surveillance of Americans focuses, in part, on the willingness of online platforms to cooperate with federal security agencies. At another level, Howley explores how social media and online activity have eroded our sense of a private self and, further, how complacent we’ve become about playing a part in our own surveillance. With our casual assistance, the National Security Agency, the FBI, the CIA and others assemble impressions of individual lives and motives from collections of online data points. The consequences are illustrated in several cases, including the book’s central one, that of Reality Winner, a former NSA contractor who sent material concerning attempted Russian interference in the 2016 election to the Intercept. Ignoring its own security protocols, that online news outlet sent the actual document for validation to the NSA, which quickly identified the leaker. Nikki Massoud narrates this disturbing book at an easy pace in a clear, compassionate voice, one entirely appropriate to describing the national security state’s perverse depiction of principled, if naive, American citizens.
(Random House Audio, Unabridged, 7 hours)