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An Officer and a Spy
- A Novel
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 16 hrs and 4 mins
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Who writes “unlistenable etc. “
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Ever since he made his first appearance in A Study In Scarlet, Sherlock Holmes has enthralled and delighted millions of fans throughout the world. Now Audible is proud to present Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, read by Stephen Fry. A lifelong fan of Doyle's detective fiction, Fry has narrated the definitive collection of Sherlock Holmes - four novels and four collections of short stories. And, exclusively for Audible, Stephen has written and narrated eight insightful introductions, one for each title.
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Ken Follett's World Without End was a global phenomenon, a work of grand historical sweep beloved by millions of readers and acclaimed by critics. Fall of Giants is his magnificent new historical epic. The first novel in The Century Trilogy, it follows the fates of five interrelated families - American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh - as they move through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage.
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A counter-terrorist operation, code-named Wildlife, is being mounted on the British crown colony of Gibraltar. Its purpose: To capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms buyer. Its authors: An ambitious Foreign Office Minister, a private defense contractor who is also his bosom friend, and a shady American CIA operative of the evangelical far-right. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister’s personal private secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it. Three years later, a disgraced Special Forces Soldier delivers a message from the dead.
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I haven't enjoyed a tale this much in many listens
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It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages. England is facing attacks from the Welsh in the west and the Vikings in the east. Those in power bend justice according to their will, regardless of ordinary people and often in conflict with the king. Without a clear rule of law, chaos reigns. In these turbulent times, three characters find their lives intertwined.
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I was really waiting for this book!
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Lily Saint James grew up traveling the European continent, learning languages as she went. In 1938, her mother's abrupt death brings her back home to Washington, DC, and after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Lily comes to the attention of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Her knowledge of German, French, and Italian makes her the perfect OSS Agent, and her quick thinking places her as a nanny in the household of an important German Army Colonel, where she is able to gather intelligence for the Allies.
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Awesome book all the way to the end.
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Publisher's summary
Robert Harris returns to the thrilling historical fiction he has so brilliantly made his own. This is the story of the infamous Dreyfus affair told as a chillingly dark, hard-edged novel of conspiracy and espionage.
Paris in 1895: Alfred Dreyfus, a young Jewish officer, has just been convicted of treason, sentenced to life imprisonment at Devil's Island, and stripped of his rank in front of a baying crowd of 20,000. Among the witnesses to his humiliation is Georges Picquart, the ambitious, intellectual, recently promoted head of the counterespionage agency that Dreyfus had passed secrets to the Germans. At first, Picquart firmly believes in Dreyfus' guilt. But it is not long after Dreyfus is delivered to his desolate prison that Picquart stumbles on information that leads him to suspect that there is still a spy at large in the French military. As evidence of the most malignant deceit mounts and spirals inexorably toward the uppermost levels of government, Picquart is compelled to question not only the case against Dreyfus but also his most deeply held beliefs about his country, and about himself.
Bringing to life the scandal that mesmerized the world at the turn of the 20th century, Robert Harris tells a tale of uncanny timeliness - a witch hunt, secret tribunals, out-of-control intelligence agencies, the fate of a whistle-blower - richly dramatized with the singular storytelling mastery that has marked all of his internationally best-selling novels.
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Charles Lenox, Victorian gentleman and armchair explorer, likes nothing more than to relax in his private study with a cup of tea, a roaring fire and a good book. But when his lifelong friend Lady Jane asks for his help, Lenox cannot resist the chance to unravel a mystery. Prudence Smith, one of Jane's former servants, is dead of an apparent suicide. But Lenox suspects something far more sinister: murder, by a rare and deadly poison.
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I like cozy
- By Sheryl on 05-21-12
By: Charles Finch
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Back Channel
- By: Stephen L. Carter
- Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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October, 1962, in Cuba: Soviet ships off-load what intelligence reveals to be nuclear missiles. In Washington, President Kennedy and his advisers are in furious debate over how long they can wait to discover what the Soviets intend before dropping the first bomb. And, in Ithaca, New York, Margo Jensen - a 19-year-old Cornell sophomore - is swept up in a bizarre concatenation of circumstances that will make of her the back-channel liaison between Soviet Premier Khrushchev and Kennedy.
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GREAT spy thriller!
- By Mark on 12-04-16
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March Violets
- By: Philip Kerr
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Hailed by Salman Rushdie as a "brilliantly innovative thriller-writer", Philip Kerr is the creator of taut, gripping, noir-tinged mysteries set in Nazi-era Berlin that are nothing short of spellbinding. The first book of the Berlin Noir trilogy, March Violets introduces listeners to Bernie Gunther, an ex-policeman who thought he'd seen everything on the streets of 1930s Berlin - until he turned freelance and each case he tackled sucked him further into the grisly excesses of Nazi subculture.
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Brilliant Nazi Era Mystery
- By Constance on 05-04-12
By: Philip Kerr
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Resurrection
- By: Leo Tolstoy
- Narrated by: Neville Jason
- Length: 20 hrs and 8 mins
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When Prince Dmitri Nekhludov is called for jury duty on a murder case, he little knows how the experience will change his life. Faced with the accused, a prostitute, he recognizes Katusha, the young girl he seduced and abandoned many years before, and realizes his responsibility for the life of degradation she has been forced to lead. His determination to make amends leads him into the darkest reaches of the Tsarist prison system, and to the beginning of his spiritual regeneration.
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Same Mood, The Same Power, Resurrected
- By Darwin8u on 11-01-15
By: Leo Tolstoy
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The Trial
- By: Franz Kafka, Mike Mitchell - translator
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
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One of the great works of the 20th century, Kafka's The Trial has been read as a study of political power, a pessimistic religious parable, or a crime novel where the accused man is himself the problem. In it, a man wakes up one morning to find himself under arrest for an offence which is never explained. Faced with this ambiguous but threatening situation, Josef K. gradually succumbs to its psychological pressure.
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kind of boring
- By Amazon Customer on 04-02-21
By: Franz Kafka, and others
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The Trial [Alpha DVD]
- By: Franz Kafka
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Josef K. is an ordinary man who is arrested on his 30th birthday. He is prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, yet the nature of his crime is never revealed to him. One year after his arrest he is executed. His last words describe his own death: "Like a dog!"
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Dick Hill's narration makes it special!
- By Wayne on 05-29-20
By: Franz Kafka
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The Spy Wore Red
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When Aline Griffith was born in Pearl River, New York, in 1923, one might have guessed from her exceptional beauty that a career as an actress or model might be in her future. Few would have imagined that twenty-one years later, she would find herself in Spain as a deep-cover OSS agent, infiltrating the highest levels of Spanish society, or that five years later still, she would marry a Spanish grandee and become one of the most watched, most admired, most fascinating women of international society. This is the story of Aline, Countess of Romanones, a story of courage, beauty and success that is far more exciting than any fictionalized thriller.
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A must read!!
- By KaY.2012 on 12-29-14
By: Aline, and others
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A Place of Greater Safety
- By: Hilary Mantel
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
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It is 1789, and three young provincials have come to Paris to make their way. Georges-Jacques Danton, an ambitious young lawyer, is energetic, pragmatic, debt-ridden - and hugely but erotically ugly. Maximilien Robespierre, also a lawyer, is slight, diligent, and terrified of violence. His dearest friend, Camille Desmoulins, is a conspirator and pamphleteer of genius. A charming gadfly, erratic and untrustworthy, bisexual and beautiful, Camille is obsessed by one woman and engaged to marry another, her daughter.
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Disaster
- By Frank Dudley Berry Jr. on 08-01-13
By: Hilary Mantel
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Death at La Fenice
- Commissario Brunetti Mysteries, Book 1
- By: Donna Leon
- Narrated by: David Colacci
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During intermission at the famed La Fenice opera house in Venice, Italy, a notoriously difficult and widely disliked German conductor is poisoned—and suspects abound. Guido Brunetti, a native Venetian, sets out to unravel the mystery behind the high-profile murder. To do so, he calls on his knowledge of Venice, its culture, and its dirty politics. Along the way, he finds the crime may have roots going back decades—and that revenge, corruption, and even Italian cuisine may play a role.
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Hercule Poirot in Venice...!!!
- By Emil Grancagnolo on 10-09-22
By: Donna Leon
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The Unlikely Spy
- By: Daniel Silva
- Narrated by: Michael Page
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“In wartime,” Winston Churchill wrote, “truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” For Britain’s counterintelligence operations, this meant finding the unlikeliest agent imaginable - a history professor named Alfred Vicary, handpicked by Churchill himself to expose a highly dangerous, but unknown, traitor. The Nazis, however, have also chosen an unlikely agent.
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The Unlikely Spy
- By Margaret on 12-14-09
By: Daniel Silva
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Stedet er Rom og tiden er år 63 f.Kr. Syv maend kaemper om magten i republikken: Cicero er konsul, Caesar hans ubarmhjertige unge rival, Pompey er republikkens maegtigste general, Crassus dens rigeste mand, Cato er politisk fanatiker, Catilina psykopaten og Clodius en ambitiøs playboy. Historierne om disse virkelige historiske figurer - deres alliancer og forraederi, deres grusomheder og forførelser, deres storslåethed og deres forbrydelser - det hele flettes sammen i denne farverige roman.
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London, 1992. Late one night, Edward Crane, 76, is declared dead at a London hospital. An obituary describes him only as a 'resourceful career diplomat'. But Crane was much more than that—and the circumstances surrounding his death are far from what they seem. Fifteen years later, academic Sam Gaddis needs money. When a journalist friend asks for his help researching a possible sixth member of the notorious Trinity spy ring, Gaddis knows that she's onto a story that could turn his fortunes around. But within hours the journalist is dead, apparently from a heart attack.
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What listeners say about An Officer and a Spy
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- paula
- 10-15-23
Great story
An incredible series of events. Well written. The history behind it is fascinating. Excellent narration.
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- Ryan
- 03-18-14
Top Notch Historical Fiction
Any additional comments?
For me, the best authors of historical fiction teach history without their readers knowing it. How? By making the facts come alive - by humanizing history. An engrossed reader comes away with a broader perspective of the world's events AND a good story.
An Officer and a Spy delivers on all accounts. And I must say I'm somewhat perplexed by a few of the negative reviews - I thought the book was excellent. It is the true story of Alfred Dreyfus, a French artillery man of German and Jewish descent, who is falsely accused and found guilty of treason - all of which remains today an unfortunate example of political injustice, aided largely by the court of public opinion. The story is suspenseful, engaging, emotional, and ultimately redemptive. A great listen for any audience - highly recommended.
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49 people found this helpful
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- susan
- 02-09-14
Good but not his best
I am a huge fan of Robert Harris--Fatherland and Ghost Writer among my all-time favorite books--and downloaded this book as soon as i read about it. In my opinion, this one falls a tad short of the high standards Harris has previously set. Having said that, i did learn a great deal about the history of the Dreyfus affair, which involved a series of disgraceful coverups, lies, and extensive corruption in the French military and some of the politicians of the time.
A quick recap: Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French military, was wrongfully convicted of leaking secrets to the Germans in the mid-1890s. He was subsequently stripped of his rank and military honors and thrown into prison for life. The fact that he was Jewish clearly added to the military's rush to conviction. When protagonist and fellow officer Georges Picquart found evidence that would prove Dreyfus' innocence, he went to great lengths and enormous personal hardship (including his own imprisonment) to set the record straight.
However it was difficult for me to feel much empathy for, nor particularly like any of the characters until probably halfway through the listen (though in truth many of the characters are just plain unlikable, including Dreyfus himself). As a result i struggled to care much about what was happening in the earlier parts and found my mind wondering off at times. It wasn't until well into the story when Picquart began to defy his superiors' orders in favor of following his own moral/ethical code of conduct that i finally became absorbed in the story. And while i never felt much love for any of the characters, the various outrageous behaviors of so many powerful people and the utter wrongness of their actions made me care enormously about how the story ended--I so totally wanted to see the wrongs made right and good prevail over evil.
Overall it is a fascinating piece of history and i would have given the story itself three and a half stars if that were an option. It is a good listen, and i recommend it, in spite of the above caveats. Plus David Rintoul is a superb narrator!
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- Mike From Mesa
- 09-19-15
A long and painful journey
An Officer and a Spy begins with the public humiliation and imprisonment of Alfred Dreyfus and the appointment of Georges Picquart, the main character in the book, as the new head of French military intelligence. As Colonel Picquart assumes his duties and learns about how the unit works he finds evidence that Dreyfus was wrongly accused and that the evidence actually points to another serving officer. As the evidence in favor of Dreyfus continues to pile up Colonel Picquart increasingly tries to convince his superiors in the military that the true traitor must be arrested and Dreyfus must be exonerated and freed, but is told that the case is settled and there is nothing that can or should be done. The book is, of course, a novel and it is impossible for the reader to know how which of Colonel Picquart’s actions are accurately represented and which are the author’s constructs, but the picture of the French military in general and the intelligence section in particular is ugly indeed.
For me, two things were striking about Mr Harris’ exploration of the Dreyfus Affair. The first is that the story reads like a bad spy novel in the sense that high officers of the French Army are actively working to both suppress evidence and forge documents to cover up their mistakes and the second is that all of this actually happened in a modern civilized Western country. Reading this book is like taking a long and painful journey through a dark tunnel; while anyone who is familiar with the history of the event knows how it will turn out, the journey is depressing and the reader is left with the feeling of having been a witness to a terrible set of wrongs. What makes this even a more painful journey is that the place described is not Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany, but France under the French Republic.
The book is well narrated and is worth reading but the reader should not expect to come out of the experience with the feeling that right will triumph in the end. This is a look at the dark side of human behavior, what people will do to hide their mistakes and how much pain they are willing to inflict on others in order to avoid the discomfort of embarrassment. In the end it is not an easy read.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Michael Eaton
- 03-18-24
The Good, the Bad, and Alfred Dreyfus
A magnificent insight by Robert Harris into a dark and moldy part of history. It is amazing to me that hatred for the Jews should have lasted for over 2000 years. Homo sapiens has produced such brilliant insights into the nature of the universe and in our own world. No other animal has gained such power over the Earth. Yet, for all the good we have accomplished, we have also brought so much cruelty and pain to ourselves and all other life. Robert Harris has given us Aa sobering view into a dark episode of our recent history. Irrational, unreasoned violence against our fellow human beings reduce ourselves to instinct-driven, cannibalistic predators.
Thanks to Robert Harris for giving us an understanding into the good and bad in all of us. The evil in the 19th Century French military still resides in all of us. The good that resided in all of the men and women who supported Alfred Dreyfus can be ours, too.
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- willmit
- 02-19-18
This is an amazing and thrilling listen.!!
I have sat in rapt anticipation of each thrilling and amazing turn of this story and sorry that it ended.
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- Roland
- 05-18-16
Breathless!
Richard Harris starts slowly in the retelling of the Dreyfuss affair that shook the French High Command in 1880-1900. He gradually builds tension, throughout the story, almost unbearably, right until the very end. A ripping good tale.
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- roy
- 01-10-19
Magnifique
Superb historical fiction account of a famous (and shocking) espionage incident which took place in France around the start of the last century. Great story and great writing.
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- Elaine
- 02-27-15
Excellent re telling of "the Dreyfus Affair"
OAs a college history major, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, based on a true story. It demonstrates, once again, that those in power will do whatever it takes to stay there. (Refer to House of Cards for current example). I listened to the book, and felt narrator did great job.
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- Texas John
- 05-13-19
OUTSTANDING!!!
Easily one of the best books I’ve enjoyed in years. The story is exceptional! The narration by David Rintoul is unmatched! I would give this 6 stars if I could.
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