Wolf on a String

A Novel

By: John Banville, Benjamin Black

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Bestselling author Benjamin Black turns his eye to sixteenth century Prague and a story of murder, magic and the dark art of wielding extraordinary power.

"...outstandingly read by Simon Vance, whose versatility with voices and intonations brings the cast to life." — Fran Wood, NJ.com

Christian Stern, an ambitious young scholar and alchemist, arrives in Prague in the bitter winter of 1599, intent on making his fortune at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, the eccentric Rudolf II. The night of his arrival, drunk and lost, Christian stumbles upon the body of a young woman in Golden Lane, an alley hard by Rudolf’s great castle. Dressed in a velvet gown, wearing a large gold medallion around her neck, the woman is clearly well-born—or was, for her throat has been slashed.

A lesser man would smell danger, but Christian is determined to follow his fortunes wherever they may lead. He quickly finds himself entangled in the machinations of several ruthless courtiers, and before long he comes to the attention of the Emperor himself. Rudolf, deciding that Christian is that rare thing—a person he can trust—sets him the task of solving the mystery of the woman’s murder. But Christian soon realizes that he has blundered into the midst of a power struggle that threatens to subvert the throne itself. And as he gets ever nearer to the truth of what happened that night in Golden Lane, he finally sees that his own life is in grave danger.

From the spectacularly inventive Benjamin Black, Wolf on a String is a historical crime audiobook that delivers both a mesmerizing portrait of a lost world and a riveting tale of intrigue and suspense.

©2017 Benjamin Black (P)2017 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"It's outstandingly read by Simon Vance, whose versatility with voices and intonations brings the cast to life." - NJ.com

"John Banville's novel Kepler was published in 1981. Now, using the pen name he has adopted for his mystery novels, he returns to [an] exciting era when science and superstition were battling for supremacy.... The ornate style of [the] narrative suits both this rich historical period and the courtly language of Prague, this 'city of masks and make-believe.' "–The New York Times Book Review

“Black [is] a master of high-class crime fiction, literary noir in the tradition of Georges Simenon and Raymond Chandler…. In characteristically gorgeous prose, he conjures a wintry world of opportunists and occultists, dwarves and hunchbacks, wolves and shadowy black-winged beasts….The marvelously evoked ‘city of masks and make-believe’ is the [novel’s] great pleasure.” –The Guardian

Disappointing

Not worthy of Black/ Banville. I was expecting more and was disappointed. Not even Simon Vance could rescue the book.

Rich, beautiful writing

This is a slow-moving, richly told tale that will be loved by those who appreciate historical fiction. As always, the story is brought to life by the dramatic reading, with all the varied voices and accents. I personally found it a bit slow and I am not much interested in the history involved, but many will love it.

Wait for it..... and nothing.

Great performance in reading: excellent voice. But I kept waiting for the story to pick up. Instead it just crawled the entire way. And got it’s hands and knees dirty along the path. Couldn’t finish it