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The Singer's Gun Paperback – August 4, 2015
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Everyone Anton Waker grew up with is corrupt. His parents dealt in stolen goods, and he was a successful purveyor of forged documents until he abandoned it all in his early twenties, determined to live a normal life, complete with career, apartment, and a fiancée who knows nothing of his criminal beginnings. He’s on the verge of finally getting married when Aria—his cousin and former partner in crime—blackmails him into helping her with one last job.
Anton considers the task a small price for future freedom. But as he sets off for an Italian honeymoon, it soon becomes clear that the ghosts of his past can't be left behind so easily, and that the task Aria requires will cost him more than he could ever imagine.
Look for Emily St. John Mandel’s bestselling new novel, Sea of Tranquility!
- Print length272 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherVintage
- Publication dateAugust 4, 2015
- Dimensions5.1 x 0.82 x 7.98 inches
- ISBN-101101911972
- ISBN-13978-1101911976
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Brilliant.” —The Boston Globe
“Something far rarer than the classic noir opening suggestions. . . . Eminently satisfying.” —The Washington Post
“Big in concept, flawless in tone, The Singer’s Gun is a tender and astounding tour de force.” —Mystery Scene
“Mandel’s talent is clearly visible from the get-go.” —Los Angeles Times
“Recklessly entertaining. . . . A modern morality tale.” —The New York Journal of Books
“A nail-biting thriller overflowing with high-stakes issues such as blackmail, theft, fraud and human trafficking.” —BookPage
“Intriguing and suspenseful.” —Library Journal
“Mandel’s second novel is an extraordinarily written meditation on identity, chance and choice. . . . Nothing short of breathtaking.” —The Howard County Times
“Gripping.” —Booklist
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
In an office on the bright sharp edge of New York, glass tower, Alexandra Broden was listening to a telephone conversation. The recording lasted no longer than ten seconds, but she listened to it five or six times before she took off her headphones. It was five thirty in the afternoon, and she had been working since seven a.m. She closed her eyes for a moment, pressed her fingertips to her forehead, and realized that she could still hear the conversation in her head.
The recording began with a click: the sound of a woman picking up her telephone, which had been tapped the day before the call came in. A man’s voice: It’s done. There is a sound on the tape here—the woman’s sharp intake of breath—but all she says in reply is Thank you. We’ll speak again soon. He disconnects and she hangs up three seconds later.
The woman’s name was Aria Waker, and the call had taken place fifteen days earlier. The incoming call came from an Italian cell phone but proved otherwise untraceable. Police were at Aria’s apartment forty minutes after the call went through, but she was already gone and she never came back again.
*
Broden walked down the hall for a coffee, talked about the baseball season with a colleague for a few minutes, returned to her office and listened to the recording one last time before she made the call.
“Is that it?” she asked when the detective answered.
“That’s it, Al.”
“Please don’t call me that. And you think they’re talking about Anton Waker?”
“If you’d seen what his parents were like the morning after that call came through, you wouldn’t ask me that question,” the detective said.
“How’s the investigation going?”
“Horribly. No one knows anything. No one even knows the dead girl’s name.” The detective sighed. “At least it’s not as bad as the last shipping container we dealt with,” he said.
“I suppose I should be grateful that only one girl died this time. Listen, I’m going to talk to the parents.”
“I tried that two weeks ago. They’re useless,” said the detective, “but be my guest.”
*
On the drive over the Williamsburg Bridge, Broden kept the radio off. She called her six-year-old daughter from the car. Tova was home from school, baking cookies with her nanny, and she wanted to know what time her mother would be home.
“Before bedtime,” Broden said, hoping this was true.
On the far side of the river she drove down into Brooklyn, graffiti-tagged warehouses rising up around her as the off-ramp lowered her into the streets, and she circled for a while before she found the store: an old brick warehouse on a corner near the river, almost under the bridge, with Waker Architectural Salvage in rusted-out letters above the doors. She parked at the side of the building and went around to the front, where a woman was sitting on the edge of the loading dock. The woman was looking out at the river, at Manhattan on the other side. She turned her head slowly when Broden said her name.
“Miriam Waker?”
“Yes,” the woman said.
“Mrs. Waker, I’m Alexandra Broden. I work with the State Department, Diplomatic Security Service division.” Broden walked up the steel steps to the loading dock. She flashed her badge at the woman, but the woman didn’t look at it. Her gaze had drifted back to the river, grey beyond the weedy vacant lot across the street. There were dark circles under her eyes and her face was colourless. “I’m sorry to bother you,” Broden said, “but I need to speak with your son.”
“He used to sit here with me,” Miriam said.
“Is he home?”
“He’s travelling.”
“Travelling where?”
She said, “In a far-off country.”
Broden stood looking at her for a moment. “Is your husband here, Mrs. Waker?”
“Yes,” she said.
Broden entered the warehouse.
*
“This one was saved from the sea near Gibraltar.” Samuel Waker had been interrupted in the middle of repainting a figurehead. He had stared flatly at Broden when she came in, but seemed unable to resist giving her a tour of his collection. The Gibraltar figurehead depicted a strong-faced woman rising out of foam, her arms disappearing into the folds of her dress. Her gown ended squarely in an odd cut-out shape where she’d been attached to a ship. Another figurehead had been recovered from the waters off France, her entire left side splintered by the coastline. A third had been pulled from the rocks off the Cape of Good Hope, and this was the one Samuel Waker was restoring. The Cape of Good Hope figurehead had hair the colour of fire, and her eyes were a terrible and final blue. In her arms she cradled an enormous fish. A block away from the nearest river, it opened its gasping mouth to the sky.
“Is this figurehead fairly new?” Broden was looking at the iridescent scales of the fish. “It looks perfect.”
“Restored,” Samuel Waker said. “Had it before, bought it back from someone.” He picked up a palette, and as he spoke he resumed retouching the figurehead’s hair. His voice was reverent. “Can’t believe my luck, getting it back again. I think I might keep it myself this time.”
“Mr. Waker, I was hoping to speak with your son.”
“Don’t know where he is, exactly. Travelling, far as I know.” Samuel Waker’s voice was steady, but she saw that the hand that painted the figurehead’s hair was trembling.
“Travelling where, Mr. Waker?”
“Europe, last I heard. He hasn’t been in contact.”
“What about your niece? You spoken with her recently?”
“Not recently. No.”
“Mr. Waker,” Broden said, “a shipping container came into the dock at Red Hook last week. It held fifteen girls who were being smuggled into the country from Eastern Europe, and one of them died in transit. I think your son and your niece may have been involved in the shipping operation.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“Mr. Waker, is your son dead?”
Anton’s father was silent for a moment. “I’m offended by the question,” he finally said. “Here I just told you that he’s travelling, and now you’re calling me a liar.”
“Mr. Waker—”
“I’d like you to leave.” He didn’t look at her. He was filling in a worn-away section of the figurehead’s hair with tiny, meticulous brush strokes. “I don’t think I have anything to say to you.”
*
Broden stepped out into the end-of-day light. The sun was setting over the island of Manhattan and Miriam Waker was a shadow on the edge of the loading dock, slumped over her coffee cup. It was November and the air was cool but no steam rose from her coffee; the coffee hadn’t been hot in a long time and she hadn’t sipped at it for longer. Broden sat down beside her, but Miriam Waker didn’t look up.
“Mrs. Waker,” Broden said, “I know you were questioned about your niece by a detective two weeks ago. Has she been in contact since then?”
“No.”
“What about your son? Have you spoken with Anton recently?”
“No.”
“Mrs. Waker, I’m afraid that something may have happened to him.”
“I don’t know where Anton is.” Her eyes had dropped to her coffee cup, and she was almost whispering. “I don’t know where he is anymore.”
“Well, where was he last?”
“The island of Ischia,” Anton’s mother said.
Product details
- Publisher : Vintage; Reprint edition (August 4, 2015)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 272 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1101911972
- ISBN-13 : 978-1101911976
- Item Weight : 9.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.1 x 0.82 x 7.98 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #258,971 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5,008 in Murder Thrillers
- #14,104 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- #16,900 in Suspense Thrillers
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL is the author of six novels, including Sea of Tranquility, The Glass Hotel, and Station Eleven, which was a finalist for a National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Her work has been translated into thirty-two languages. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.
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Anton Waker wants to live a different life than the one he grew up in. So he creates one. But when that doesn't work out, he has to make new plans.
That's about all I can tell you with out ruining the story. I loved this book. I loved her first one, Last Night in Montreal, but I think I loved this one more. Hard to tell, they are both so great. The Singer's Gun gives us Anton Waker, who I found to be a fascinating character. He is low key, yet a character I could discuss at length. But I can't do that here or I will ruin the book for you.
Mandel's work stands out against others as it is so well-written and perfectly told. This is a writer who does not drag her story or manipulate emotions. She is an unsentimental writer who writes beautifully and really lets you decide for yourself about her characters. Of course, I love them all.
my rating 5/5
And yet I finished the book. Because this author is such a professionally competent writer that one keeps reading, thinking always, she may just magically pull it off. Shame. She didn't.
The title is a bit enigmatic. The singer’s gun does play a role in the story, but it may not be clear what it represents or why it’s important enough to get top billing. I have my own views but that’s for each reader to ponder. And yes – the book will leave you with plenty more to chew on. It’s most definitely worthy of a place on your reading list.
Anton Waker came from a family who business was dealing in stolen antiques which his father repaired. Anton when he was young why his father's deliveries came a 2:00 am. Anton went to Columbia for one semester and then left to become involved with selling fake social security cards and passports to illegal immigrants. Anton finally decides he wants a real office job and is selected for one and hired Elena as his secretary. But Aria blackmails Anton into doing one last "job." This last job becomes the evil part of the book with an number of twists and turns, with a satisfying ending.
Short, easy to read, well-written book with an original plot. I recommend this book.
On a side note, if I ever have the chance to interview the author I want to ask her what her fascination is with fine hotels. Other than Station 11 they seem to be important in all of her works and I can tell she finds something interesting or alluring about them. If forced to guess it would the diverse stories or life choices of all the people who pass through and work in them.
Top reviews from other countries
Anton Waker grew up knowing that his family's architectural salvage business frequently strayed into nefarious territory, selling goods of dubious provenance. While this troubled him, it didn't bother his cousin Aria who came to live with the Wakers. She took inspiration from her aunt's and uncle's flexible sense of enterprise and, from an early age, developed her own line of business, in which Anton gradually collaborated. However, as the novel opens, he is primarily concerned with the state of his relationship with his fiancée Sophie, who has already cancelled (or at least postponed) their wedding twice. When they do eventually make it down the aisle, they go to Ischia for their honeymoon, where, after a couple of days, Anton delivers his own bombshell, telling Sophie (without any prior hint of such an idea) that he wants to stay on in Ischia for a couple of weeks, with a view toi writing a book. Sophie is unimpressed and departs back to mainland Italy, and thence to New York, almost without a word.
We are then given an insight into Anton's life in the weeks immediately preceding the wedding. Having striven to pull himself out of the criminal subculture into which his family had been driving him, he had been working as a consultant for a water provision company. Things had, however, started to go awry, and he found himself reassigned to a different office, with alarming consequences. Meanwhile, his secretary Elena, a Canadian from a small settlement well into the tundra wastes of the Arctic Circle, has begun behaving oddly.
The story unfolds in a series of episodes, moving backwards and forwards in time, and shifting focus. Such an approach can, of course, be confusing or distracting, but Mandel handles it brilliantly, and the shifting timeline and perspective serve to illuminate rather than confuse the flow of the story. She also has an extraordinary ability to create characters who are immensely believable and who remain essentially sympathetic even when their behaviour is far from exemplary.
Another exhilarating facet of the book is Mandel's mastery of a complex and interlaced plot, and P. G. Wodehouse would have been proud to have conceived and delivered such an intricate but beautifully resolved plot.
7th book read in 2020
I purchased this book new and I purchased it at the same time as three other books by Emily, This is the second of the four books I have read. I purchased these four books as I heard a good review on radio of Emily's books,
This book was published in 2015 in paperback and that’s the version I read.
This is a smaller book by my standards roughly 260 pages,
This book is divided into parts,
Everyone Anton Waker grew up with is corrupt. His parents dealt in stolen goods, and he was a successful purveyor of forged documents until he abandoned it all in his early twenties, determined to live a normal life, complete with career, apartment, and a fiancée who knows nothing of his criminal beginnings. He’s on the verge of finally getting married when Aria—his cousin and former partner in crime—blackmails him into helping her with one last job.
Anton considers the task a small price for future freedom. But as he sets off for an Italian honeymoon, it soon becomes clear that the ghosts of his past can't be left behind so easily, and that the task Aria requires will cost him more than he could ever imagine.
I would give this book 4.25*