Bob Odenkirk narrates the audiobook version of superagent Ari Emanuel‘s upcoming memoir — but friends of the “Better Call Saul” star and longtime Emanuel client are aghast that he’s not mentioned in the tome that drops more names than a West Side mohel.

An insider explains that Emanuel put a great deal of thought into the decision for Odenkirk to be his voice. Why pick Odenkirk, arguably the most beloved man toiling in television, to voice Hollywood’s most ruthless shark?

For one, Odenkirk is one of Emanuel’s original clients, whose successes on “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul” are entwined with Emanuel’s arc from mere agent to mogul. And, as a fellow Chicagoan, Odenkirk has the right accent (Mark Wahlberg is way too Boston, while Larry David screams Brooklyn.) 

“Ari is a voracious audiobook listener, so the choice of narrator was a highly considered process,” the insider says. “The most important thing was finding someone who could capture his voice and personality. Bob did so perfectly.”

But an Odenkirk friend was “surprised” that the actor doesn’t appear in the Knopf book, while Quentin Tarantino, Denzel Washington, Martin Scorsese and Oprah Winfrey all made the cut. Billie Eilish, who has been a WME client since just 2023, isn’t merely name-checked. She made the jacket copy.

“Bob wasn’t mentioned?!” says the friend, who felt it was a glaring omission. “He’s a foundational client.”

Another source close to the actor says Odenkirk didn’t feel slighted at all. “Bob loved the book and learning more about Ari and how he focused his way through the business,” the source tells Page Six Hollywood. “He is certainly not upset about not being included.  If anything, he feels that Ari got to save something about Bob for book No. 2.”

Odenkirk certainly appeared to be plenty enthused by the time he recorded the audio. Emanuel sat nearby in the studio to watch the actor narrate the final pages.

“We both got choked up, because we’ve known each other forever, and because: Life! Ari’s been my agent, my friend, since the days of ‘Mr. Show,’ and he’s always been a character, but I didn’t realize how much until I read his whole crazy story,” Odenkirk wrote in an Instagram post.

“It’s really the perfect book for this moment in which we find ourselves, because it shows how you have to be a little crazy to survive this crazy world. But you know what? You can say Ari was out of his mind to make 300 calls a day, fighting for his clients and building his empire, or you can say that was his genius.”