Irène cover art

Irène

Camille Verhoeven, Book 1

Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Irène

By: Pierre Lemaitre, Frank Wynne - translator
Narrated by: Peter Noble
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

For Commandant Verhoeven life is beautiful: he is happily married, expecting his first child with the lovely Irène.

But his blissful existence is punctured by a murder of unprecedented savagery. Worse still, the press seem to have it in for him - his every move is headline news. When he discovers that the killer has killed before - that each murder is a homage to a classic crime novel - the fourth estate are quick to coin a nickname: The Novelist.

With both men in the public eye, the case develops into a personal duel, each hell-bent on outsmarting the other. There can only be one winner - whoever has the least to lose.

©2006 Pierre Lemaitre et Editions du Masque (P)2014 WF Howes Ltd
Suspense Thriller & Suspense Crime Murder Scary Fiction

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Great Swindle cover art
Blood Wedding cover art
Silvermeadow cover art
A Litter of Bones: A Scottish Crime Thriller cover art
The Infirmary: A DCI Ryan Mystery (Multicast Drama) cover art
Deadly Lies cover art
A Great Deliverance cover art
Fragile Cord cover art
Cambridge Blue cover art
The Murder Wall cover art
Cut Short cover art
Last Gasp cover art
Above Suspicion cover art
Perfect Remains cover art
The Birthday cover art

Critic reviews

"Last year, I was not alone in hailing Pierre Lemaitre’s Alex as one of my top crime books of 2013 . . . Irène, now published in an excellent English translation, is just as gripping, frightening, intelligent and brilliant" ( Marcel Berlins, The Times)
"Quirky, brutal and not for the faint-hearted, it is crime fiction of the highest class . . . Superbly constructed and executed, it puts Lemaitre very close to Ellroy’s class. If you pick it up, you won’t be able to put it down" ( Geoffrey Wansell, Daily Mail)
"A page-turning race to a grand-slam finish" ( Laura Wilson, Guardian)
All stars
Most relevant  
Compulsive listening. The story was powerful and unique though extremely distressing but told with compassion and disturbing beauty

Gripping

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

One of the best audiobooks I've ever listened to in the dark genre! Listen at your peril. Highly recommended if you dare.

Brilliant

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

loved it, gripping and sinister. excellent narration. this was audible at its best. characters came to life.

audible at its best.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

What did you like most about Irène?

The French accent of the narrator reading the story,really added to the listening experience, and gave it a French atmosphere, and you could imagine you were there

What did you like best about this story?

The clever twists and turns, and the way the killer was goading Camille.

Which scene did you most enjoy?

When Camille and his team worked out where Irene was being held,and they arrived on the scene and found her.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, I found it hard to turn it off.

French mystery

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I don’t use clever in a pejorative way. This is a clever, tricksy book. To say how would give away too much but a serial killer using scenarios from crime novels is a perfect plot for fans of crime novels.

A clever book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Well written and thought out but horribly brutal. Some memorable characters and plot lines. More horror than detection.

Not for the faint hearted

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I don’t like the way the narrator reads all the woman with a high pitch. There is no caracter in the way he portrays them, only an annoying voice. As if woman talks like that.

I struggled a bit to get in to the book. It gets better, and the story is good. But if it weren’t for the fact that I have heard great things about the next book Alex, I probably wouldn’t finish this one

Good story, just ok narrator

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

An unusual crime novel with a great idea - hood there are no copycats! Difficult to follow who's who as there are a lot if characters right at the beginning. I would have given 5 stars but there was too much gore.

Brilliant writing but gory

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Any additional comments?

I've just listened to all 3 books from this author. And the narrator chosen kills book 1 and 3, where as Alex has a good narrator.

The narrator kills the book!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I've never read or listened to thrillers of this nature before and was slightly horrified that despite the very detailed and gory nature of the writing I could not stop listening
I'd already listened to Alex (accidentally misreading the order these books were written in) so knew the outcome already. But still wished Irene to be saved. This book has character voices whilst Alex does not - I preferred the later performance.
Will move onto book 3 with anxious anticipation

Horrifying and compulsive

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews