A Rope and a Prayer
The Story of a Kidnapping
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Narrated by:
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David Rohde
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Kristen Mulvihill
About this listen
The compelling and insightful account of a New York Times reporter's abduction by the Taliban, and his wife's struggle to free him.
Invited to an interview by a Taliban commander, New York Times reporter David Rohde and two Afghan colleagues were kidnapped in November 2008 and spirited to the tribal areas of Pakistan. For the next seven months, they lived in an alternate reality, ruled by jihadists, in which paranoia, conspiracy theories, and shifting alliances abounded. Held in bustling towns, they found that Pakistan's powerful military turned a blind eye to a sprawling Taliban ministate that trained suicide bombers, plotted terrorist attacks, and helped shelter Osama bin Laden.
In New York, David's wife of two months, Kristen Mulvihill, his family, and The New York Times struggled to navigate the labyrinth of issues that confront the relatives of hostages. Their methodical, Western approach made little impact on the complex mix of cruelty, irrationality, and criminality that characterized the militant Islam espoused by David's captors.
In the end, a stolen piece of rope and a prayer ended the captivity. The experience tested and strengthened Mulvihill and Rohde's relationship and exposed the failures of American effort in the region. The tale of those seven months is at once a love story and a reflection of the great cultural divide - and challenge - of our time.
©2010 David Rohde (P)2010 PenguinListeners also enjoyed...
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Editorial reviews
New York Times reporter David Rohde and Cosmo magazine photo editor Kristin Mulvihill were married barely two months in November 2008 when he was captured outside of Kabul. In A Rope and A Prayer: A Kidnapping From Two Sides, the couple alternates narrating chapters to tell the story of his captivity and her heroic quest to free him.
Theirs is a genre-bending duet. Geo-political thriller, love story as diary, foreign-policy critique, the book features some welcome comic relief, too, thanks to Mulvihill’s wry Bridget Jones-style notes on her work at Cosmo when the drama begins.
Rhode goes first, starting his account several months after he, his driver Asad Mangal, and his translator Tahir Ludin fall into a trap set by the memberd of the Taliban Haqqani sect. Relocated from one primitive prison house to another along the Afghan/Pakistani border, Rohde seeks clues to his captors’ plans as well as those of his seemingly dubious driver. His cool, often grim reportorial tone brings his harrowing reality to life as well as some surprisingly odd and enchanting moments of human connection, as when Rohde, with prisoners and guards playing key roles, reenacted his own recent wedding ceremony.
Having been kidnapped once before in the Balkans, Rohde knows the pain his family must feel, and feels special guilt for Mulvihill. Breaking his promise to forgo such on-the-job risk-taking, he has blindsided his new bride, and may yet widow her.
For her part, the warmth of Mulvihill’s voice and her self-deprecating humor immediately bring listeners into the mesh of her life in crisis. She describes a kind of makeover, from photo editor/wrangler of celebrity models to, with Rohde’s brother Lee, default team leader of the federal and private security personnel, former hostages, and media advisors recruited to her cause. Her chapters convey, often poetically, a deeply thoughtful woman, turning to friends, family, and faith to live in the present, even as she strives to keep her husband alive in body and in her own soul.
While the story sometimes stalls when Rohde takes on US Mideast policy, the intensely told, bold, and very lucky escape is compensation. Ultimately, listeners may feel the authors’ harmonic convergence in this multi-dimensional work that, at its heart, is a portrait of a marriage tempered by fate. Elly Schull Meeks
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Story
Far from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States and al-Qaeda are fighting a clandestine war of drones and suicide bombers in an unforgiving corner of Arabia. The Last Refuge charts the rise, fall, and resurrection of al-Qaeda in Yemen over the last 30 years, detailing how a group that the United States once defeated has now become one of the world’s most dangerous threats. An expert on Yemen who has spent years on the ground there, Gregory D. Johnsen uses al-Qaeda’s Arabic battle notes to reconstruct their world as they take aim at the United States and its allies.
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bin laden.
- By Rhea on 07-15-13
By: Gregory Johnsen
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The Unraveling
- High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq
- By: Emma Sky
- Narrated by: Henrietta Meire
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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When Emma Sky, an intrepid young British woman, volunteered to help rebuild Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, she had little idea what she was letting herself in for: a tour that would last over a decade, longer than that of any senior military or political official. As the only adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Kirkuk and the closest confidante to US General Odierno, Sky was valued for her controversial voice and outsider's point of view.
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Inspiring memoir; irritating narration
- By Amazon Customer on 09-17-16
By: Emma Sky
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Rosewater - Previously Published as 'Then They Came For Me’
- By: Maziar Bahari, Aimee Molloy
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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When Maziar Bahari left London in June 2009 to cover Iran's presidential election, he assured his pregnant fiancée, Paola, that he'd be back in just a few days, a week at most. Little did he know, as he kissed her good-bye, that he would spend the next three months in Iran’s most notorious prison, enduring brutal interrogation sessions at the hands of a man he knew only by his smell: Rosewater.
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Book that would've shined but for the narration
- By loix on 06-24-11
By: Maziar Bahari, and others
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Breaking Cover
- My Secret Life in the CIA and What it Taught Me About What's Worth Fighting For
- By: Michele Rigby Assad
- Narrated by: Michele Rigby Assad
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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The CIA is looking for walking contradictions. Recruiters seek people who can keep a secret, yet pull classified information out of others; who love their country, but are willing to leave it behind to head into dangerous places; who live double lives, but can be trusted with some of the nation's most sensitive tasks. Michele Rigby Assad was one of those people. As a CIA agent, Michele soon found that working undercover was an all-encompassing job. The threats were real. The mission was a perilous one. Trained as a counterterrorism expert, Michele spent over a decade in the agency.
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Deceptive title and sample.
- By Philip Yaghmai on 07-17-18
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A Time to Betray
- The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran
- By: Reza Kahlili
- Narrated by: Richard Allen
- Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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A true story as exhilarating as a great spy thriller, as turbulent as today's headlines from the Middle East, A Time to Betray reveals what no other previous CIA operative's memoir possibly could: the inner workings of the notorious Revolutionary Guards of Iran, as witnessed by an Iranian man inside their ranks who spied for the American government.
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Great book, Farsi speakers will hate narrator
- By Johnny on 10-27-13
By: Reza Kahlili
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The Tunnels
- Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill
- By: Greg Mitchell
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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A thrilling Cold War narrative of superpower showdowns, media suppression, and two escape tunnels beneath the Berlin Wall.
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captivating
- By maria on 11-28-16
By: Greg Mitchell
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Death of a Dissident
- The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB
- By: Alex Goldfarb, Marina Litvinenko
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Abridged
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The November 2006 assassination of former Russian intelligence officer Alexander "Sasha" Litvinenko, who was poisoned by the rare radioactive element polonium, caused an international sensation. Within a few short weeks, the fit 43-year-old lay gaunt, bald, and dying in a hospital, the victim of a "tiny nuclear bomb". Suspicions swirled around Russia's FSB, the successor to the KGB, and the Putin regime.
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Very interesting and scary...
- By A. M. on 03-21-15
By: Alex Goldfarb, and others
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Raven
- The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People
- By: Tim Reiterman
- Narrated by: Mitch Horowitz
- Length: 29 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Tim Reiterman's Raven provides the seminal history of the Rev. Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and the murderous ordeal at Jonestown in 1978. This PEN Award-winning work explores the ideals gone wrong, the intrigue, and the grim realities behind the Peoples Temple and its implosion in the jungle of South America.
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What a very thoroughly written book!
- By Traci P. on 04-22-17
By: Tim Reiterman
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The Good Spy
- The Life and Death of Robert Ames
- By: Kai Bird
- Narrated by: René Ruiz
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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The Good Spy is Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Kai Bird’s compelling portrait of the remarkable life and death of one of the most important operatives in CIA history - a man who, had he lived, might have helped heal the rift between Arabs and the West. On April 18, 1983, a bomb exploded outside the American Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people. The attack was a geopolitical turning point. It marked the beginning of Hezbollah as a political force, but even more important, it eliminated America’s most influential and effective intelligence officer in the Middle East - CIA operative Robert Ames.
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Biased but interesting
- By Peggy on 05-09-18
By: Kai Bird
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Inside the Kingdom
- Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia
- By: Robert Lacey
- Narrated by: Robert Lacey
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling author Robert Lacey tells us what happened in the Middle East's oil-rich powerhouse---while we weren't looking.
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Inside the Kingdom
- By Ibrahim on 03-19-10
By: Robert Lacey
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Killing a King
- The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel
- By: Dan Ephron
- Narrated by: Assaf Cohen
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin remains the single most consequential event in Israel's recent history and one that fundamentally altered the trajectory for both Israel and the Palestinians. Killing a King relates the parallel stories of Rabin and his stalker, Yigal Amir, over the two years leading up to the assassination, as one of them planned political deals he hoped would lead to peace - and the other plotted murder.
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Tragic history well presented.
- By Mmday on 02-28-16
By: Dan Ephron
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A Kingdom of Their Own
- The Family Karzai and the Afghan Disaster
- By: Joshua Partlow
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 18 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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The key to understanding the calamitous Afghan war is the complex, ultimately failed relationship between the powerful, duplicitous Karzai family and the United States, brilliantly portrayed here by the former Kabul bureau chief for The Washington Post.
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Fabulous
- By Charles S. on 10-23-23
By: Joshua Partlow
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Agent 110
- An American Spymaster and the German Resistance in WWII
- By: Scott Miller
- Narrated by: Noah Michael Levine
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the secret and suspenseful account of how OSS spymaster Allen Dulles led a network of Germans conspiring to assassinate Hitler and negotiate surrender to bring about the end of World War II before the Soviet's advance. Agent 110 is Allen Dulles, a newly minted spy from an eminent family. Dulles met with and facilitated the plots of Germans who were trying to destroy the country's leadership.
By: Scott Miller
What listeners say about A Rope and a Prayer
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- JaredC
- 01-01-13
Fascinating. Suspenseful! Thought provoking.
Where does A Rope and a Prayer rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
Listening to David and then Kristen read makes this an easy top choice for my best book.
What was one of the most memorable moments of A Rope and a Prayer?
The most memorable moment was the escape.
What does David Rohde and Kristen Mulvihill bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Their voices personalize the experience and position the listener to be a friend.
What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?
David's observations about organized religion succinctly expressed my own thoughts and gave relevance to prayer.
Any additional comments?
The skillful reading of their story by the authors added significant value to this book as an audible.com choice.
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- Oliver
- 04-23-21
Had high hopes but was let down
The reading performances were poor. Especially Mulvihill's. I can't put my finger on what they were both doing wrong but I kept wanting to give up. Whether it was their writing style or their delivery style I was struggling to empathize with their situations. The music interludes saved the production a few times.
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- Jenn
- 01-28-16
Lack of insight
With seven months in captivity, the lack of insight into cultural and geopolitical complexities was staggering.
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1 person found this helpful
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- ChihuaGirl
- 08-18-21
US Exit Chaotic, Why there’s really no other way
“Our3” are prime examples of the fact that nothing will change in a culture driven by distorted religious zealotry and lust for power.
I must believe the religious extremists who hide behind distorted interpretations of holy books will be judged for their actions in this life and in the afterlife when they meet their God in person.
I am happy that Our3 survived.
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Overall
- Ed
- 12-31-10
A History Lesson
Not what I expected. The 11 hour book could have made a good 3 hour story.
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4 people found this helpful