
Extreme Vetting
A Thriller
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $15.60
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Haley Young
-
Maxwell McAtee
-
By:
-
Roxana Arama
About this listen
An immigration lawyer fights to keep her client from being deported and losing his family. But those who want him gone will stop at nothing—including murder.
Seattle, Washington, 2019. Attorney and single mom Laura Holban is an immigrant herself, guiding clients through a Kafkaesque system of ever-changing rules, where overworked judges make life-shattering decisions in minutes. Laura’s newest client is Emilio Ramirez, who was arrested in front of his sons at their high school and thrown in detention.
When Laura files for Emilio’s asylum, the world turns upside down. False criminal charges prevent his release, someone is following his family, and an ICE prosecutor threatens to revoke Laura’s US citizenship. None of it makes sense—until she uncovers a deadly conspiracy involving ICE, stolen data, and human trafficking.
Now, the man at the center of it all is coming after Laura and Emilio, who must find a way to survive—and keep their families safe.
©2023 Roxana Arama (P)2023 Roxana AramaListeners also enjoyed...
-
The 6:20 Man
- A Thriller
- By: David Baldacci
- Narrated by: Zachary Webber, Christine Lakin, Mela Lee
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every day without fail, Travis Devine puts on a cheap suit, grabs his faux-leather briefcase, and boards the 6:20 commuter train to Manhattan, where he works as an entry-level analyst at the city’s most prestigious investment firm. In the mornings, he gazes out the train window at the lavish homes of the uberwealthy, dreaming about joining their ranks. In the evenings, he listens to the fiscal news on his phone, already preparing for the next grueling day in the cutthroat realm of finance. Then one morning Devine’s tedious routine is shattered by an anonymous email: She is dead.
-
-
A new Baldacci exmilitary protagonist…
- By shelley on 07-13-22
By: David Baldacci
-
The Law of Innocence: Booktrack Edition
- By: Michael Connelly
- Narrated by: Peter Giles
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the night he celebrates a big win, defense attorney Mickey Haller is pulled over by police, who find the body of a former client in the trunk of his Lincoln. Haller is immediately charged with murder but can’t post the exorbitant $5 million bail. Mickey elects to represent himself and is forced to mount his defense from his jail cell in downtown Los Angeles. Even if he can obtain a not-guilty verdict, Mickey understands that it won’t be enough. In order to be truly exonerated, he must find out who really committed the murder and why. That is the law of innocence.
-
-
Don't buy "book track edition"
- By Amazon Customer on 10-18-22
By: Michael Connelly
-
The Summer House
- The Classic Blockbuster from the Author of Lion & Lamb
- By: James Patterson, Brendan DuBois
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once a luxurious Southern getaway on a rustic lake, then reduced to a dilapidated crash pad, the Summer House is now the grisly scene of a nighttime mass murder. Eyewitnesses point to four Army Rangers - known as the Night Ninjas - recently returned from Afghanistan. To ensure that justice is done, the Army sends Major Jeremiah Cook, a veteran and former NYPD cop, to investigate. But the major and his elite team arrive in sweltering Georgia with no idea their grim jobs will be made exponentially more challenging by local law enforcement....
-
-
Not as good as expected by hype.
- By Anonymous User on 06-16-20
By: James Patterson, and others
-
Drowning
- By: T. J. Newman
- Narrated by: Steven Weber, Laura Benanti
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Six minutes after takeoff, Flight 1421 crashes into the Pacific Ocean. During the evacuation, an engine explodes and the plane is flooded. Those still alive are forced to close the doors—but it’s too late. The plane sinks to the bottom with twelve passengers trapped inside. More than two hundred feet below the surface, engineer Will Kent and his eleven-year-old daughter Shannon are waist-deep in water and fighting for their lives.
-
-
Outstanding!
- By Adanna H on 05-30-23
By: T. J. Newman
-
The River We Remember
- A Novel
- By: William Kent Krueger
- Narrated by: CJ Wilson
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On Memorial Day in Jewel, Minnesota, the body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. The investigation falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional scars from his military service. Even before Dern has the results of the autopsy, vicious rumors begin to circulate that the killer must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran who has recently returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife.
-
-
This book makes me believe that there are good books written by good authors.
- By Va on 09-15-23
-
Mean Streak
- By: Sandra Brown
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dr. Emory Charbonneau, a pediatrician and marathon runner, disappears on a mountain road in North Carolina. By the time her husband Jeff, miffed over a recent argument, reports her missing, the trail has grown cold. Literally. Fog and ice encapsulate the mountainous wilderness and paralyze the search for her. While police suspect Jeff of "instant divorce," Emory, suffering from an unexplained head injury, regains consciousness and finds herself the captive of a man whose violent past is so dark that he won't even tell her his name.
-
-
Meh - Only Ok if You Like Cheese
- By Michelle Harder on 06-26-17
By: Sandra Brown
-
The 6:20 Man
- A Thriller
- By: David Baldacci
- Narrated by: Zachary Webber, Christine Lakin, Mela Lee
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every day without fail, Travis Devine puts on a cheap suit, grabs his faux-leather briefcase, and boards the 6:20 commuter train to Manhattan, where he works as an entry-level analyst at the city’s most prestigious investment firm. In the mornings, he gazes out the train window at the lavish homes of the uberwealthy, dreaming about joining their ranks. In the evenings, he listens to the fiscal news on his phone, already preparing for the next grueling day in the cutthroat realm of finance. Then one morning Devine’s tedious routine is shattered by an anonymous email: She is dead.
-
-
A new Baldacci exmilitary protagonist…
- By shelley on 07-13-22
By: David Baldacci
-
The Law of Innocence: Booktrack Edition
- By: Michael Connelly
- Narrated by: Peter Giles
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the night he celebrates a big win, defense attorney Mickey Haller is pulled over by police, who find the body of a former client in the trunk of his Lincoln. Haller is immediately charged with murder but can’t post the exorbitant $5 million bail. Mickey elects to represent himself and is forced to mount his defense from his jail cell in downtown Los Angeles. Even if he can obtain a not-guilty verdict, Mickey understands that it won’t be enough. In order to be truly exonerated, he must find out who really committed the murder and why. That is the law of innocence.
-
-
Don't buy "book track edition"
- By Amazon Customer on 10-18-22
By: Michael Connelly
-
The Summer House
- The Classic Blockbuster from the Author of Lion & Lamb
- By: James Patterson, Brendan DuBois
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Once a luxurious Southern getaway on a rustic lake, then reduced to a dilapidated crash pad, the Summer House is now the grisly scene of a nighttime mass murder. Eyewitnesses point to four Army Rangers - known as the Night Ninjas - recently returned from Afghanistan. To ensure that justice is done, the Army sends Major Jeremiah Cook, a veteran and former NYPD cop, to investigate. But the major and his elite team arrive in sweltering Georgia with no idea their grim jobs will be made exponentially more challenging by local law enforcement....
-
-
Not as good as expected by hype.
- By Anonymous User on 06-16-20
By: James Patterson, and others
-
Drowning
- By: T. J. Newman
- Narrated by: Steven Weber, Laura Benanti
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Six minutes after takeoff, Flight 1421 crashes into the Pacific Ocean. During the evacuation, an engine explodes and the plane is flooded. Those still alive are forced to close the doors—but it’s too late. The plane sinks to the bottom with twelve passengers trapped inside. More than two hundred feet below the surface, engineer Will Kent and his eleven-year-old daughter Shannon are waist-deep in water and fighting for their lives.
-
-
Outstanding!
- By Adanna H on 05-30-23
By: T. J. Newman
-
The River We Remember
- A Novel
- By: William Kent Krueger
- Narrated by: CJ Wilson
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On Memorial Day in Jewel, Minnesota, the body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. The investigation falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional scars from his military service. Even before Dern has the results of the autopsy, vicious rumors begin to circulate that the killer must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran who has recently returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife.
-
-
This book makes me believe that there are good books written by good authors.
- By Va on 09-15-23
-
Mean Streak
- By: Sandra Brown
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dr. Emory Charbonneau, a pediatrician and marathon runner, disappears on a mountain road in North Carolina. By the time her husband Jeff, miffed over a recent argument, reports her missing, the trail has grown cold. Literally. Fog and ice encapsulate the mountainous wilderness and paralyze the search for her. While police suspect Jeff of "instant divorce," Emory, suffering from an unexplained head injury, regains consciousness and finds herself the captive of a man whose violent past is so dark that he won't even tell her his name.
-
-
Meh - Only Ok if You Like Cheese
- By Michelle Harder on 06-26-17
By: Sandra Brown
-
Witness to a Trial
- A Short Story Prequel to The Whistler
- By: John Grisham
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A judge’s first murder trial. A defense attorney in over his head. A prosecutor out for blood and glory. The accused, who is possibly innocent. And the killer, who may have just committed the perfect crime.
-
-
Mislead
- By Anne on 11-05-16
By: John Grisham
-
Last Seen Alone
- By: Laura Griffin
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Up-and-coming attorney Leigh Larson fights for victims of sexual extortion, harassment, and online abuse. Unafraid to go after the sleaziest targets to get payback for her clients, she’s laser-focused on her career — to the exclusion of everything else — until a seemingly routine case and a determined cop turn her world upside down.
-
-
Good story… as usual. But…
- By Anonymous User on 07-15-22
By: Laura Griffin
-
Bright Young Women
- A Novel
- By: Jessica Knoll
- Narrated by: Sutton Foster, Imani Jade Powers, Corey Brill, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Masterfully blending elements of psychological suspense and true crime, Jessica Knoll—bestselling author of Luckiest Girl Alive and the writer behind the Netflix adaptation starring Mila Kunis—delivers an “unflinching and evocative” (Laura Dave, New York Times bestselling author) thriller in Bright Young Women. The book opens on a Saturday night in 1978, hours before a soon-to-be-infamous murderer descends upon a Florida sorority house with deadly results. The lives of those who survive, including a sorority president and key witness, Pamela Schumacher, are forever changed.
-
-
Perfectly executed historical fiction
- By Louie Z on 12-03-23
By: Jessica Knoll
-
Simply Lies
- By: David Baldacci
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan, Corey Carthew
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Mickey Gibson, single mother and former detective, leads a hectic life similar to that of many moms: juggling the demands of her two small children with the tasks of her job working remotely for ProEye, a global investigation company that hunts down wealthy tax and credit cheats. When Mickey gets a call from a colleague named Arlene Robinson, she thinks nothing of Arlene’s unusual request for her to go inventory the vacant home of an arms dealer who cheated ProEye’s clients and fled.
-
-
Very Good New Series!!!!
- By shelley on 04-19-23
By: David Baldacci
-
The Only One Left
- A Novel
- By: Riley Sager
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin, Dawn Harvey
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.
-
-
Can't take it anymore
- By Amazon Customer on 06-28-23
By: Riley Sager
-
Saving Emma
- A Novel
- By: Allen Eskens
- Narrated by: Gary Tiedemann, Matt Godfrey, Saskia Maarleveld, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Boady Sanden first receives the case of Elijah Matthews, he’s certain there’s not much he can do. Elijah, who believes himself to be a prophet, has been locked up in a psychiatric hospital for the past four years, convicted of brutally murdering the pastor of a megachurch. But as a law professor working for the Innocence Project, Boady agrees to look into Elijah’s file. When he does, he is alarmed to find threads that lead back to the death of his colleague and friend, Ben Pruitt, a man shot to death four years earlier in Boady’s own home.
-
-
Love Eskins but not my favorite
- By Tracey B. on 10-16-23
By: Allen Eskens
-
The Secret Life of Sunflowers
- By: Marta Molnar, Dana Marton
- Narrated by: Kendra Murray
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Hollywood auctioneer Emsley Wilson finds her famous grandmother's diary while cleaning out her New York brownstone, the pages are full of surprises. The first surprise is, the diary isn't her grandmother's. It belongs to Johanna Bonger, Vincent van Gogh's sister-in-law.
-
-
Nothing like a expected…
- By LOVETOQUILT on 05-06-23
By: Marta Molnar, and others
-
The Book of Charlie
- By: David Von Drehle
- Narrated by: David Von Drehle
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a veteran Washington journalist moved to Kansas, he met a new neighbor who was more than a century old. Little did he know that he was beginning a long friendship—and a profound lesson in the meaning of life. Charlie White was no ordinary neighbor. Born before radio, Charlie lived long enough to use a smartphone. When a shocking tragedy interrupted his idyllic boyhood, Charlie mastered survival strategies that reflect thousands of years of human wisdom.
-
-
Loved it
- By Josee on 06-09-23
By: David Von Drehle
-
A Killer's Wife
- Desert Plains, Book 1
- By: Victor Methos
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fourteen years ago, prosecutor Jessica Yardley's husband went to prison for a series of brutal murders. She's finally created a life with her daughter and is a well-respected attorney. She's moving on. But when a new rash of homicides has her ex-husband, Eddie, written all over them - the nightmares of her past come back to life.
-
-
Finally, a thriller worthy of being called that!!
- By cindy on 03-09-20
By: Victor Methos
-
The Chain
- By: Adrian McKinty
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Your phone rings. A stranger has kidnapped your child. To free them you must abduct someone else's child. Your child will be released when your victim's parents kidnap another child. If any of these things don't happen: Your child will be killed. You are now part of the chain.
-
-
A Major Departure For McKinty
- By Graham on 07-18-19
By: Adrian McKinty
-
The Girls in the Snow
- Nikki Hunt, Book 1
- By: Stacy Green
- Narrated by: Kate Handford
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the remote forests of Stillwater, Minnesota, you can scream for days and no one will hear you. So when the bodies of two 15-year-old girls are discovered frozen in the snow, Special Agent Nikki Hunt is sure the killer is local: Someone knew where to hide the girls and thought they would never be found. Though Nikki hasn’t been home in 20 years, she knows she must take over the case.
-
-
Everything was just...bad
- By Theotokos on 03-27-21
By: Stacy Green
-
The Better Sister
- A Novel
- By: Alafair Burke
- Narrated by: Sophie Amoss, Samantha Desz, Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a prominent Manhattan lawyer is murdered, two estranged sisters - one the dead man’s widow, the other his ex - must set aside mistrust and old resentments...but can they escape their past?
-
-
A better reader, maybe?
- By Frequent Listener on 04-30-19
By: Alafair Burke
What listeners say about Extreme Vetting
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mara
- 11-27-23
Engrossing thriller with well developed characters
Extreme Vetting shocked me in the best way. First, as an audiobook, the narration had a unique blend of two narrators, who alternated between the characters’ perspectives. This made for an interesting combination of voices, as some characters narrated by one narrator would also be narrated by the other in their chapter. This was not distracting, just interesting to hear the different takes on the characters' voices.
Though I don’t usually seek out thrillers, except the occasional Tana French murder mystery, I really liked how Extreme Vetting set the story in the present day around a true horror story—deportation. Arama described the stress of a parent being taken away from the perspective of the children, parents and lawyers. I felt I was hearing what that reality feels like. The corruption and mysterious reason for Emilio’s arrest created even more intensity and intrigue.
Extreme Vetting works as a thriller, but it also works as a lesson on tolerance and identity. The main character Laura is concerned over her accent and feels pressure from her position to sound a certain way. The novel allows readers to step into Laura’s shoes to feel this constant judgment. I really appreciated the use of this theme, as it reminded me of my friend who often feels this pressure.
The best part of Arama’s novel are the characters. She has created believable, lovable (and hateable) characters. She doesn’t fulfill stereotypes; on the contrary, she tries to break them down. Certain of her villains (unnamed to prevent spoilers) are complex, with backstories and sympathetic moments that show complexity. Her main characters, too, have flaws. Little details like Laura’s relationship with her mother and David’s concern over his dad’s car add up to make very complete feeling characters.
Overall, I would definitely recommend this novel to anyone looking for an engrossing, real feeling legal thriller.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!