Start gifting
Libro.fm for Business
Start a membership, get two free audiobooks
Bookseller Created
Ken Recommends!
Send as gift
Add to Wish List
Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create account
Limited-time offer
Get two free audiobooks when you make the switch!
Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.
Make the switch
Gift audiobook credit bundles
You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.
Start giftingDefending Jacob
A Novel
Narrator
Grover Gardner
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn more
Length
12 hours 24 minutes
Language
English
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - “A legal thriller that’s comparable to classics such as Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent . . . tragic and shocking.”—Associated PressNOW AN EMMY-NOMINATED ORIGINAL STREAMING SERIES - NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly - Boston Globe - Kansas City Star
Andy Barber has been an assistant district attorney in his suburban Massachusetts county for more than twenty years. He is respected in his community, tenacious in the courtroom, and happy at home with his wife, Laurie, and son, Jacob. But when a shocking crime shatters their New England town, Andy is blindsided by what happens next: his fourteen-year-old son is charged with the murder of a fellow student.
Every parental instinct Andy has rallies to protect his boy. Jacob insists that he is innocent, and Andy believes him. Andy must. He’s his father. But as damning facts and shocking revelations surface, as a marriage threatens to crumble and the trial intensifies, and as the crisis reveals how little a father knows about his son, Andy will face a trial of his own—between loyalty and justice, between truth and allegation, between a past he’s tried to bury and a future he cannot conceive.
Award-winning author William Landay has written the consummate novel of an embattled family in crisis—a suspenseful, character-driven mystery that is also a spellbinding tale of guilt, betrayal, and the terrifying speed at which our lives can spin out of control.
William Landay is the author of The Strangler, a Los Angeles Times Favorite Crime Book of the Year, and Mission Flats, winner of the Creasey Memorial Dagger Award for Best First Crime Novel and a Barry Award nominee. A former district attorney who holds degrees from Yale and Boston College of Law, he lives in Boston.
Grover Gardner has recorded more than 650 audiobooks since beginning his career in 1981. He's been named one of the "Best Voices of the Century" as well as a "Golden Voice" by AudioFile magazine. Gardner has garnered over 20 AudioFile Earphones Awards and is the recipient of an Audio Publishers Association Audie Award, as well as a three-time finalist. In 2005, Publishers Weekly deemed him "Audiobook Narrator of the Year."
Gardner has also narrated hundreds of audiobooks under the names Tom Parker and Alexander Adams. Among his many titles are Marcus Sakey's At the City's Edge, as well as Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and John Irving's The Cider House Rules. Gardner studied Theater and Art History at Rollins College and received a Master's degree in Acting from George Washington University. He lives in Oregon with his significant other and daughter.
Reviews
“Powerful…Leaves you gasping breathlessly at each shocking revelation.”
“Riveting, suspenseful, and emotionally searing.”
“Gardner’s performance is well wrought and subtle…In the end, this is a thoroughly engaging story of family and legal drama, made all the more so by Gardner’s skillful depiction.”
“Landay spins a tale of such complexity and emotion that you don’t even realize you’re spiraling deep into his world until he spits you out at his shocking, shattering conclusion.”
“A carefully plotted and precisely written thriller about a family put to the ultimate test…Propelled by an ongoing courtroom drama and with a neat final twist, Defending Jacob is bound to enthrall.”
“Defending Jacob centers on a father's worst nightmare, to find his fourteen-year-old son charged with the murder of a classmate...Defending Jacob made my courtroom thriller loving heart sing for joy, a well written, deftly plotted legal tale that was full of hidden depths. Fans of crime fiction, even if not particularly legal thriller fans, should not miss this utterly enthralling novel…Gardner has this wonderful voice that is just suited for first person narratives. He almost sounds like your favorite uncle, the one who always has the best stories to tell you. You become so used to his voice, one that has a unique quality to it, that, especially in first person tales, it takes you a while to realize just how well he is voicing the peripheral characters…I think one of the hardest things for a narrator to do is have authentic sounding dialogue between two characters, and here it was like I was listening to a masters class on how to do it…Grade: A.”
“On the surface this novel reads like a first-rate thriller, but at its heart it’s a love story…[about] the fine edge between love and madness and the lies we sometimes tell ourselves.”
“A harrowing family drama with riveting courtroom scenes that make readers feel they are actually witnessing the trial unfold.”
“A novel like this comes along maybe once a decade…a full-blooded legal thriller about a murder trial and the way it shatters a family.”
“A clever blend of legal thriller and issue-oriented family implosion.”
“Grover Gardner does an excellent job reading the audiobook. He captures the insolence and dignity of Andy’s dysfunctional father, Laurie’s hopelessness, and Andy’s determination to exonerate Jacob. Recommended for legal thriller fans.”
“This searing narrative proves the ancient Greek tragedians were right: the worst punishment is not death but living with what you—knowingly or unknowingly—have done.”
Expand reviews