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Kennedy's Brain

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Kennedy's Brain

By: Henning Mankell
Narrated by: Anna Bentinck
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About this listen

When archaeologist Louise Cantor’s son, Henrik, is found dead in his flat, she refuses to believe it was suicide. Clues that only a mother could detect lead her to believe something more sinister took place.

Henrik had kept many things back from her, and she is shocked to learn he had contracted HIV. While looking through his bundles of papers, she discovers he was obsessed with the conspiracy theory that JFK’s brain disappeared prior to the autopsy – along with the vital evidence regarding bullet exit wounds. The only lead is a letter and photograph from Henrik’s girlfriend in Mozambique.

Louise’s quest to unravel the mystery surrounding her son’s death takes her to Africa; a continent rife with disease, poverty, and corruption. Struggling to cope with sickness and the oppressive heat, Louise sees fear in every face, even unexpectedly in the patients at the clinics set up by an American businessman. In Kennedy’s Brain Mankell confirms his status as a master of suspense, and delivers a timely and riveting thriller which will have readers on the edge of their seats until the very end.

©2007 Henning Mankell (P)2009 Random House Audio Suspense Thriller & Suspense Exciting Human Brain Fiction Mystery

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As I heard the the familiar valediction 'Audible hopes you have enjoyed this program' I was stuck by the sense that enjoy is the wrong adjective for this book. It is the harrowing story of a mother searching for the truth about the death of her son. Not a exciting tale about the dogged determination and wit of a flawed yet heroic detective. Something I have come to expect from Mankell.

Be ready for uncomfortable truths about mortality, inequality and the lack of happy endings in an often grim world.

My recommendation? Stick with it. It will reward without you even realising it. I hope you like me will be the better for the experience despite an ending that can by no means to be said to be satisfying.

So hit the 'buy' button and strap in for a bitter slice of a despair threaded with slivers of sweet hope.

Audible hopes you have endured...

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This books was so different from the Wallender books, and brought up topics that were not easy listening.
The story line was excellent and the narration by Anna Bentnick very good. Aids in Africa is a difficult subject but this book which is fiction probably based on fact makes you angry about man's inhumanity to men. Recommended for the thrilling read, and the story which will keep you guessing all the way.

Excellent Book

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I am a fan of Henning Mankell's Wallander novels and have enjoyed a couple of his non-detective books and so had high hopes that I would like Kennedy's Brain. There is little in the story to connect to the eponymous President's disappearing brain, but a lot about AIDS in Africa, a topic near to the heart of the author, and the inequities of US drug companies (which I do believe). The proselytizing gets in the way of the rather rambling story of archaeologist, Louise Cantor's, quest to find out why her son had died in mysterious circumstances in his Stockholm flat. Her quest takes her to Australia, Spain and Africa. Louise is depicted as treating others in an irritable and sometimes rude way which makes her a main character about whom one doesn't feel the necessary sympathy to follow her through the book.

The narrator of the book, though, does a grand job with different accents to help the listener identify the various characters.

There are too many sub-plots and speechifying by characters and I was getting bored by the last couple of hours of the book, but carried on as I was doing other things at the same time. Disappointing as the author, in other books, has creates a terrific narrative-drive that can keep me awake late into the night. Maybe his personal involvement in trying to combat the AIDS epidemic in Africa has clouded his usual skills.

Disappointing: too polemical and rambling

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I need to listen to this book all over again ! Totally brilliant, very thought provoking, a gripping tale from end to end, I think I even need to buy the actual book ... gee wow whizz what a listen ! very well narrated ... totally gripping from start to finish ... yikes I'm breathless !!

devastatingly complex and thoroughly scary

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This is the worst story I have heard by HM so dissatisfied with this book
Q

Disappointed

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