The Feral Detective

A Novel

By: Jonathan Lethem

Narrated by: Zosia Mamet

Jonathan Lethem’s first detective novel since Motherless Brooklyn

“One of America’s greatest storytellers.” —Washington Post

Phoebe Siegler first meets Charles Heist in a shabby trailer on the eastern edge of Los Angeles. She’s looking for her friend’s missing daughter, Arabella, and hires Heist to help. A laconic loner who keeps his pet opossum in a desk drawer, Heist intrigues the sarcastic and garrulous Phoebe. Reluctantly, he agrees to help. The unlikely pair navigate the enclaves of desert-dwelling vagabonds and find that Arabella is in serious trouble—caught in the middle of a violent standoff that only Heist, mysteriously, can end. Phoebe’s trip to the desert was always going to be strange, but it was never supposed to be dangerous. . . .

Jonathan Lethem’s first detective novel since Motherless Brooklyn, The Feral Detective is a singular achievement by one of our greatest writers.

Bonus: Stay tuned after the end of the audiobook to hear an exclusive conversation between Zosia Mamet and Jonathan Lethem.

the writing is good

the writing is good and so is the story. the narration was excellent, which was sort of a surprise to me

Phenomenal

The Feral Detective is a Lethem masterwork. Zosia Mamet's performance is extraordinary. Mesmerizing and thrilling. This has got to be one of the best audiobooks out there.

Amusing story but a flawed reading

The reader's voice has a youthful, sultry character that fits the story's narrator well. But something is off. At times the reader seems to mumble — or at least speak unclearly enough as to be hard understand. She also tends to read in a monotone that makes it difficult to separate what the narrator says out loud in dialogue from the narrator's running commentary on her dialogue. In truth, I could not easily differentiate where the narrator's spoken dialogue stared and ended without looking at the punctuation in the book.

This is a comic detective story, and pretty whacky, in a playful, amusing way. But the weird turns in the story line make it all the harder to follow the action and details when the reader isn't always annunciating clearly. I gave up on listening and wound up reading the last half of the book.

As for the story itself, I'm glad I finished. The comic ride had its moments. But overall, I learned the genre of comic detective stories isn't going to become one of my favorites.

Horrible narrator

Can't tell how good the story is because the narrator is terrible. Can't understand her monotone and her voice is like she's half asleep. Not only that, she was putting me to sleep. I listened for a couple hours and can't remember a single thing about the story, only how irritating her voice is. I'm returning this book!

great velocity

listened to it in the desert and thought it captured the scene. the narrator is a brilliant, delicious bitch, so NY. her sweetheart is a miracle. Trump election is a great backdrop.