Garden of Beasts: A Novel of Berlin 1936

Written by Jeffery Deaver

Narrated by Jefferson Mays

In the most ingenious and provocative thriller yet from 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: execution 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.

Paul travels to Germany, takes a room in a boarding house 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 pre-war Berlin and steers the story to a breathtaking and wholly unpredictable ending.

The novel won the Steel Dagger award for best espionage thriller of the year from the prestigious Crime Writers’ Associate in the United Kingdom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Jul 13, 2004
• ISBN: 9780743551700

Jeffery Deaver

Jeffery Deaver is the #1 internationally bestselling author of forty-four novels, three collections of short stories, and a nonfiction law book. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into twenty-five languages. His first novel featuring Lincoln Rhyme, The Bone Collector, was made into a major motion picture starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie and a hit television series on NBC. He’s received or been shortlisted for a number of awards around the world, including Novel of the Year by the International Thriller Writers and the Steel Dagger from the Crime Writers’ Association in the United Kingdom. In 2014, he was the recipient of three lifetime achievement awards. He has been named a Grand Master by Mystery Writers of America.

Reviews for Garden of Beasts

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Paul Schumann is a hired assassin who is sent by the US government to Germany just prior to the 1936 Olympics in Munich. His task is to assassinate one of the top Nazi officials who is in charge of the re-armament. The main action of the book takes place over a weekend although I kept having to remind myself of that because it seemed like there was so much going on. Right after Paul gets to Munich he is involved in a murder in an alleyway. The police detective assigned to the case, Willi Kohl, is a hardworking, intelligent cop. He loves his wife and his family and he does not like the National Socialist Party. Although Paul is supposed to be the hero of the piece, I was also rooting for Willi, half hoping he would catch Paul and half hoping he wouldn't. I thought it was a fine piece of writing to make both detective and criminal so human. The ending was a shock to me. Good for Deaver to avoid an easy resolution.

[johnwbeha · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a really pleasant surprise. It has sat on a shelf waiting patiently whilst other Deaver's jumped up the reading queue. But it finally arrived at the top spot and I found it excellent. As is to be expected from Deaver, the writing and the plotting are exceptional, but this time, it was the characterisation that really drew me into the book. Essentially a policeman is hunting an assassin who is hunting a target, but we are in Germany in the late thirties and Deaver builds empathy with all three key characters, even though one is a Mafia killer and another is ... (That would be telling!).
The story of the chase is compelling with lots of beautifully delivered twists and turns.

Highly recommended!

[podler_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Ultimately a disappointment. The book begins interestingly enough--a "button man" is tapped by fledgling US Intelligence agency to go into Nazi Germany and kill one of Hitler's henchmen. The story breaks down once the button man gets into Germany, and the plot must be rescued by an improbable twist.

[whwine · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

excellent period piece - seems like the real deal, very well researched, some dead-end plot threads, but all-in-all a good book

[gophergolfer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An unlikely story of a contract killer saved from prison by going to Germany in 1936 to kill a german general. However the descriptions of Hitler, Goering, Goebbels and of the Berlin surroundings of the time are authentic and add to interest. A lot of detail in the background

[brianewilliams · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great book! Good story, well told and with memorable characters. Plenty of plot twists and satisfactory ending. Authentic -- demonstrates attention to historical detail. I'd like to see a sequel featuring Detective Inspector Willi Kohl, once he leaves Germany in 1937.

[drewfull · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Rather by-the-lines thriller depicting a gun for hire who "only kills the bad guys" (of course) going after a Nazi leader and generally playing the good guy. Deaver does his best work in this novel when describing Germany between wars, and it's clear that he had put some work into understanding the turmoil going on at that time in history.In sum, moderately fun but we're not breaking any new ground here.

[carl_alves_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was the first book from Jeffrey Deaver that I've read and it was a delightful read. What I mostly liked about the novel was the main character. He was a hit man with a conscience. The protagonist did a great deal of developing throughout the story. Even the main antagonist, the target of the hit had a real human element to him. The story was well conceived, but the characters are what really brought it home for me. There was a lot to like about this novel.Carl Alves - author of Two For Eternity

[fiberbabble_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Wow. I'm surprised, but I really enjoyed this book. The fine print on the cover says "A novel of Berlin 1936" and that almost made me pass this one by.

The novel does a good job of imparting the paranoia of pre-war Berlin. This isn't anything I would have gone in search of, but it was quite effective.

All this war stuff aside, the mystery/adventure was well done - I couldn't see what was coming, I wasn't tempted to skip ahead over unnecessary or boring passages (surprisingly, I don't recall any). There were a couple of twists and turns that while surprising, weren't shocking - and they enhanced rather than defined the overall story.

Read it. Don't judge a book by it's cover. I'm glad I didn't.

[jeyra_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Slightly more disturbing than even most Deaver novels, which is saying something. Contains language, violence, and disturbing sexual content (abuse).

[meyben_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Good book. Very action packed. The main character who is a hit man turns himself around, seems to good to eb true.

[neilsantos_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Ok, I liked it, I thought the author really did an impressive amount of homework on the scene, including common German slang expressions. I didn't know "Nazi" was a slur, (Bavarian slang for a simpleton). Apparently the complimentary version of "Nazi" is "Nazo".The main character, is totally flat though. He's absurdly good at spycraft for a simple mob hitman, and is almost infallible. Making for a pretty dull character. One of the gotchas was pretty good, if a little convoluted; the last one was pretty obvious and kinda stupid in its insanity.