Audiobook Sample
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- Title: Diamond Eye: A Novel
- Author: Kate Quinn
- Narrator: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 12:51:54
- Version: Abridged
- Release Date: 29/03/2022
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Genre: Fiction & Literature, Historical Fiction, Contemporary Women, War & Military
- ISBN13: 9.78E+12
The first time I heard Saskia Maarleveld’s voice wrap around Mila Pavlichenko’s story, I was driving through the Carpathian Mountains, where the mist clung to pine trees like smoke from distant artillery. There’s something about listening to war stories while moving through landscapes that have known conflict that makes the experience vibrate in your bones. Kate Quinn’s “Diamond Eye” – with Maarleveld’s extraordinary narration – became my companion through those winding roads, just as Mila’s rifle became her companion through the snows of Kiev and the glittering halls of Washington.
Quinn has done it again, weaving historical detail with emotional truth in a way that reminds me of sitting with that Oaxacan grandmother from my travels – the way she could make history feel personal, urgent. Here, we follow Mila, a bookish librarian turned lethal sniper, whose transformation from quiet scholar to ‘Lady Death’ is rendered with such psychological precision that you forget this is fiction based on fact. The novel’s power lies in its contradictions: the warmth of Mila’s love for her son against the cold efficiency of her sniper’s eye, the intellectual’s vocabulary she uses to describe war’s horrors.
Maarleveld’s performance is nothing short of revelatory. She captures Mila’s wry humor and steel resolve while making room for the character’s vulnerabilities – the way her voice fractures slightly when Mila recalls pre-war mornings reading Pushkin to her son, or how it flattens into something dangerous during sniper sequences. There’s a particular scene where Mila waits for a target in a ruined theater; Maarleveld’s pacing makes you hold your breath alongside her. It transported me back to listening to “All Quiet on the Western Front” in a Berlin hostel, where the walls seemed to whisper with ghosts of the past.
The audiobook’s supplemental PDF (a HarperAudio hallmark) enriches the experience with photographs of the real Mila and period documents. Quinn’s research shines – from the tactile details of Mosin-Nagant rifles to Eleanor Roosevelt’s tea service – but never overwhelms the story. Some may find the Washington sections slower compared to the eastern front’s tension, but this mirrors Mila’s own dislocation. The friendship with Eleanor is rendered with particular grace, two women navigating male-dominated worlds.
For listeners who appreciated “The Rose Code” or Anthony Doerr’s “All the Light We Cannot See”, this offers a fresh perspective – war through a female sniper’s crosshairs. Maarleveld’s ability to shift between Russian, Ukrainian, and American accents grounds the global scope. A minor critique: some secondary characters sound similar, but this hardly dims the brilliance.
As someone who’s stood at the Babyn Yar memorial and felt history’s weight, I can say Quinn and Maarleveld make that weight palpable. The final duel – no spoilers – left me parked roadside, gripping the steering wheel. Not since “The Nightingale” has a war story made me weep while driving.
With ink-stained fingers and a traveler’s curiosity,
Marcus Rivera
