Whispering Shadows

February 9, 2015
Paul Leibovitz, the hero of this contemplative, understated novel from Sendker (The Art of Hearing Heartbeats), feels bereft after his young son dies of leukemia. A long-time Hong Kong resident, the German-born Leibovitz is now divorced and living a reclusive life on the outlying island of Lamma, where his obsession for keeping the memories of his son alive has kept him in a continual state of mourning. But his aimless existence is given meaningâand put into grave dangerâwhen he helps an old friend, a Chinese homicide detective, find the truth behind the murder of an American businessman. A burgeoningâalbeit fragileârelationship with a woman he meets while walking complicates his life further. Equal parts crime thriller, romance, and examination of the impact of Chinaâs Cultural Revolution on those who endured its atrocities, this novel is, at its heart, a story about the burden of survival. Despite a predictable ending, it still packs a wallop.

The protagonist of this fascinating audiobook, American Paul Leibovitz, has lived in Hong Kong for decades, is thoroughly acculturated, and speaks flawless Mandarin. Still, there is a disconnect between his Western understanding of human nature and what his Chinese acquaintance learned about moral behavior during the Cultural Revolution. When a successful young American businessman is murdered in mainland China, Paul and his friend, Police Detective Zhang, soon realize that Zhang's bosses are railroading an innocent man. For different reasons, both refuse to stand back and let it happen. George Newbern's Chinese pronunciation sounds very good to this non-Chinese speaker, but he rushes his reading, swallowing syllables and small words, and he often misplaces emphasis, distorting meaning. It isn't fatal, but crisper would have been better. B.G. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine