Waking Lions

By: Ayelet Gundar-Goshen

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

In this thrilling drama from an award-winning author, after one night's deadly mistake, a man will go to any lengths to save his family and his reputation.

Neurosurgeon Eitan Green has the perfect life—married to a beautiful police officer and father of two young boys. Then, speeding along a deserted moonlit road after an exhausting hospital shift, he hits someone. Seeing that the man, an African migrant, is beyond help, he flees the scene.

When the victim's widow knocks at Eitan's door the next day, holding his wallet and divulging that she knows what happened, Eitan discovers that her price for silence is not money. It is something else entirely, something that will shatter Eitan's safe existence and take him into a world of secrets and lies he could never have anticipated.

Waking Lions is a gripping, suspenseful, and morally devastating drama of guilt and survival, shame and desire from a remarkable young author on the rise.

Critic reviews

"Waking Lions offers a commentary on privilege and otherness, challenging readers to confront their own blind spots and preconceptions....Trained as a clinical psychologist, Gundar-Goshen examines her characters with the same formidable gaze. Nobody emerges unscathed....Gundar-Goshen is adept at instilling emotional depth into a thriller plot, delivering the required twists and turns along with an incisive portrayal of her characters' guilt, shame and desire, fluidly shifting between their perspectives....Readers will be rewarded by [Waking Lions'] exhilarating, cinematic finale. Skillfully translated by Sondra Silverston, Waking Lions is a sophisticated and darkly ambitious novel, revealing an aspect of Israeli life rarely seen in its literature."—Ayelet Tsabari, New York Times Book Review

"Vividly imagined, clever, and morally ambiguous....[Waking Lions] is a smart and disturbing exploration of the high price of walking away, whether it be from a car accident or from one's own politically unstable homeland."
—Maureen Corrigan, National Public Radio's "Fresh Air"

"Waking Lions, in a propulsive translation from Hebrew by Sondra Silverston, yokes a crime story to thorny ethical issues in ways reminiscent of Donna Tartt and Richard Price...it's a rare book that can trouble your conscience while holding you in a fine state of suspense."
—Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

"If there were a literary prize for nail-biting first lines, Israeli writer Ayelet Gundar-Goshen's second novel, Waking Lions would win...brave and startling."
—Financial Times UK

"Uncommonly complex, socially aware, and ethically ambiguous....plot is almost secondary to the political implications Gundar-Goshen explores - but what a plot it is, fuel for meditations on integrity and the layered guilt of the Israeli bourgeoisie."
—Boris Kachka, New York "7 Books You Need to Read This February"

"Earth-shattering."—Harper's Bazaar

"An intense moral thriller.... The twists upon twists upon twists in this story...will have readers yelping out loud. Waking Lions seems poised to catch fire."
—Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

"Anyone who loves the magic of the printed word should read Waking Lions....Gundar-Goshen has earned, and deserves, a worldwide audience, and this magnificent novel may well be the vehicle for that."—Joe Hartlaub, Bookreporter

"It pulled me right in. In just 18 words, a spell was cast and broken, and I couldn't wait to go on."


—Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times

"Gripping....twists and turns like a thriller."
—Sunday Times UK

An intriguing story of characters in conflict

Life throws curve balls at all of us, presenting us at times with difficult moral decisions to make. We are caught between a rock and a hard place, and we face the challenge of dealing with it. The story here is a page-turner that kept me hooked from the first chapter until the end.

Good story, subpar narrator

While I enjoyed the story, I had trouble getting past the way the narrator's style. In my opinion, he over dramatized too much language so the moments that deserved emphasized drama, didn't stand out enough. The story suffered because of that.

Totally absorbing book!

Loved this book. So deep and yet subtle. You finish it with much to think about.

Engaging ethnic mystery in Israel

Beautifully narrated story of love, deception, mystery, politics, refugees, and family. Even the end is both satisfying and unsettling.

Waking all of us

This book goes on my list of forever books,
A Little Life, and Dickens and Austen.
The story is extraordinary and the writing
and observations of the human
condition will never leave me. This
is truly A MUST READ.