The Accomplice, Joseph Kanon
The Accomplice, Joseph Kanon
9 Rating(s)
List: $25.99 | Sale: $18.20
Club: $12.99

The Accomplice

Author: Joseph Kanon

Narrator: Jonathan Davis

Unabridged: 9 hr 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/05/2019


Synopsis

One of AudioFile’s Best Audiobooks of 2019!

Named “The Book of the Year” by Lee Child in The Guardian

From “master of the genre” (The Washington Post) and author of Leaving Berlin, a heart-pounding and intelligent espionage novel about a Nazi war criminal who was supposed to be dead, the rogue CIA agent on his trail, and the beautiful woman connected to them both.

Seventeen years after the fall of the Third Reich, Max Weill has never forgotten the atrocities he saw as a prisoner at Auschwitz—nor the face of Dr. Otto Schramm. He was the camp doctor who worked with Mengele on appalling experiments and who sent Max’s family to the gas chambers. As the war came to a close, Schramm was one of the many high-ranking former-Nazi officers who managed to escape Germany for new lives in South America, where leaders like Argentina’s Juan Perón gave them safe harbor and new identities. With his life nearing its end, Max asks his nephew Aaron Wiley—an American CIA desk analyst—to complete the task Max never could: to track down Otto in Argentina, capture him, and bring him back to Germany to stand trial.

Unable to deny his uncle, Aaron travels to Buenos Aires and discovers a city where Nazis thrive in plain sight, mingling with Argentine high society. He ingratiates himself with Otto’s alluring but damaged daughter, whom he’s convinced is hiding her father. Enlisting the help of a German newspaper reporter, an Israeli agent, and the obliging CIA station chief in Buenos Aires, he hunts for Otto—a complicated monster, unexpectedly human but still capable of murder if cornered. Unable to distinguish allies from enemies, Aaron will ultimately have to discover just how far he is prepared to go to render justice.

“With his remarkable emotional precision and mastery of tone” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), Joseph Kanon crafts another “gripping and authentic” (The New York Times Book Review) thriller that you won’t be able to put down.

About Joseph Kanon

Joseph Kanon is the Edgar Award–winning author of Los Alamos and nine other novels: The Prodigal SpyAlibiStardustIstanbul PassageLeaving BerlinDefectorsThe AccompliceThe Berlin Exchange, and The Good German, which was made into a major motion picture starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett. Other awards include the Hammett Award of the International Association of Crime Writers and the Human Writes Award of the Anne Frank Foundation. He lives in New York City.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Paige

This is a great piece of espionage fiction! It was sexy and fast-paced. The dialogue was fierce and tangible. A spy-thriller-romance set against the backdrop of history made for a great read. It is as described: In 1962, Aaron seeks to justify his Uncle Max’s last wish in hunting down a Nazi, Otto S......more

I read this book because one of the 2020 Booker judges chose it as their novel of 2019 ([URL not allowed]) The book, set in 1962, opens in Hamburg with an ageing Auschwitz survivor (Max Weill) trying to persuade his CIA desk analyst nephew Aaron to take on Max’s post war quest......more

Goodreads review by Timothy

Joseph Kanon’s latest novel is a masterpiece of psychological suspense. Set in 1962, an aging Nazi-hunter, Max Weill, sees on the street one of the worst perpetrators of the Holocaust, Otto Schramm, who’s been thought to be long-dead but instead is alive and well. Infamous for torturing children, Sc......more

Goodreads review by Steven

For the remaining survivors of the Holocaust the term “statute of limitations” is meaningless, they still want justice. No one knows how many of Hitler’s murderers remain alive or where they might be, but for the few their culpability in the Nazi death machine should merit capture, trial, and punish......more


Quotes

"Jonathan Davis gives an unparalleled performance of Joseph Kanon's exciting, thought-provoking, and highly satisfying novel set in 1962, after the capture and execution of Adolf Eichmann, the infamous Nazi. Max Weill, an Auschwitz survivor and famed Nazi hunter, spots Otto Schramm in a Hamburg park. Schramm, a high-ranking Nazi and Mengele co-worker, was presumed dead. Aging and ill, Max insists that his nephew, Aaron, an office worker with a safe, comfortable CIA desk job, find the elusive Nazi. Aaron finds himself out of his depth as he becomes entangled in both the search for Schramm and his feelings for Hanna, Schramm's daughter. Davis effortlessly becomes all the actors, everyone from Israeli Mossad and CIA field agents to Hanna and to Schramm himself. The shocking conclusion will leave listeners reeling."