The Friend

In this writerly audiobook, a middle-aged author inherits an aging Great Dane after her friend's suicide. As she learns to care for the animal and struggles with the loss of her friend, she reflects on the friendship, and on writing, literature, and humans' relationships with their pets and each other. Hillary Huber's gravelly, frank delivery complements Nunez's unnamed narrator, who is by turns unflinchingly honest and frustratingly opaque about her own grief. Subtle vocal changes differentiate characters, but the novel belongs mostly to the protagonist. Huber's warm, wry narration keeps the listener engaged through diversions and flashbacks that make up this unusual, thought-provoking novel. E.C. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Starred review from April 29, 2019
At the start of Zander’s thought-provoking standalone sequel to The Swimmer and The Believer, aspiring diplomat Jakob Seger, an intern assigned to the Swedish embassy in Beirut, arrives in Lebanon in August 2015, several months before the nightmarish ISIS attacks in France. At a party, Jakob encounters the alluring Yassim, who says he’s a war photographer. The two begin a passionate affair that becomes all-consuming for Jakob. Three months later in Sweden, recovering alcoholic Klara Waldéen, a former European Parliament political adviser scarred from events in the earlier novels, attends her beloved grandfather’s funeral, where she reunites with her close friend Gabriella, an attorney who has exposed a Russian role in recent Stockholm riots. Eventually, the two narratives—Jakob’s fraught relationship with Yassim, who may be a terrorist, and Klara’s struggle to pull her life together—intersect on a flight across Europe with devastating results. Thriller fans who enjoy flawed, achingly human characters won’t be able to put this one down. Agent: Astri von Arbin Ahlander, Ahlander Agency (Sweden).

In this chilling audiobook, one man's choices during a clandestine affair lead to danger for those trying to help him. Narrator Josh Bloomberg voices Jacob Seger, a fledgling Swedish diplomat assigned to war-torn Beirut. The tentative Jacob quickly finds himself in over his head in his relationship with the exotic Yassim, whom Jacob falls for despite her mysterious disappearances for "work." Narrator Hillary Huber portrays sharp-witted Klara Waldeen, a recovering alcoholic who, with her lover, George, gets yanked into Jacob's orbit while investigating why a friend has been arrested as a terrorist. Bloomberg and Huber ably showcase the overwhelming confusion of the trio who are drawn together while being hunted by shadowy figures. What results is a thought-provoking thriller that holds up a mirror to today's rampant global paranoia. D.E.M. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine