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Title details for The Death Instinct by Jed Rubenfeld - Available

The Death Instinct

by Jed Rubenfeld
Kerry Shale
Audiobook
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A spellbinding literary thriller about terror, war, greed, and the darkest secrets of the human soul, by the author of the million-copy bestseller The Interpretation of Murder.
Under a clear blue September sky, America's financial center in lower Manhattan became the site of the largest, deadliest terrorist attack in the nation's history. It was September 16, 1920. Four hundred people were killed or injured. The country was appalled by the magnitude and savagery of the incomprehensible attack, which remains unsolved to this day.
The bomb that devastated Wall Street in 1920 explodes in the opening pages of The Death Instinct, Jed Rubenfeld's provocative and mesmerizing new novel. War veteran Dr. Stratham Younger and his friend Captain James Littlemore of the New York Police Department are caught on Wall Street on the fateful day of the blast. With them is the beautiful Colette Rousseau, a French radiochemist whom Younger meets while fighting in the world war. A series of inexplicable attacks on Rousseau, a secret buried in her past, and a mysterious trail of evidence lead Young, Littlemore, and Rousseau on a thrilling international and psychological journey-from Paris to Prague, from the Vienna home of Dr. Sigmund Freud to the corridors of power in Washington, D.C., and ultimately to the hidden depths of our most savage instincts. As the seemingly disjointed pieces of what Younger and Littlemore learn come together, the two uncover the shocking truth behind the bombing.
Blending fact and fiction in a brilliantly convincing narrative, Jed Rubenfeld has forged a gripping historical mystery about a tragedy that holds eerie parallels to our own time.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 20, 2011

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780307913890
      • File size: 425712 KB
      • Duration: 14:46:53

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from November 8, 2010
      The 1920 bombing of Wall Street, the most deadly act of terrorism in the United States until the Oklahoma blast of 1995, provides the framework for Rubenfeld's excellent follow-up to The Interpretation of Murder. The sweeping plot details the baffling hunt for those responsible for the death and injury of more than 400 New Yorkers. Numerous intriguing subplots snake out from the main story line, several of which bring such historical figures as Marie Curie, famous for her radium experiments, and Sigmund Freud, who had a significant role in the previous book, to life. Rubenfeld deftly wends his way through the shifting landscape with a historian's factual touch and a storyteller's eye for the dramatic and telling. Readers will be enthralled as Dr. Stratham Younger, the hero of The Interpretation of Murder—aided by his beautiful fiancée, scientist Colette Rousseau, and Det. James Littlemore—manages to solve the Wall Street bombing, something that the real authorities never did.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Who can forget the September terrorist bombing of the New York financial district? Yes, 1920 was quite a year. Rubenfeld's novel revisits that other bombing of Wall Street, linked to Italian terrorists, which casts innumerable allusions to that eerily similar New York bombing on September 11, 81 years later. Narrator Kerry Shale is the perfect choice to deliver this complicated story. His varied repertoire of voices weaves a love story that involves seedy national politics, scientific breakthroughs, and WWI. Shale perfectly creates the many varied characters that bring this novel to life. The bombing is a turning point in the lives of three characters, who include Sigmund Freud and Madame Curie. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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