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Dark Star
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 18 hrs
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Publisher's summary
Critic reviews
"Intelligent, provocative, and gripping novel....Beautifully and compellingly told." (Publishers Weekly)
"A rich, deeply moving novel of suspense that is equal parts espionage thriller, European history, and love story." (The New York Times)
"Captures the murky allegiances and moral ambiguity of Europe on the brink of war....Nothing can be like watching Casablanca for the first time. But Furst comes closer than anyone has in years." (Time)
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The first audiobook which appeared in Georges Simenon's famous Maigret series, in a gripping new translation by David Bellos.Inevitably Maigret was a hostile presence in the Majestic. He constituted a kind of foreign body that the hotel's atmosphere could not assimilate. Not that he looked like a cartoon policeman. He didn't have a moustache and he didn't wear heavy boots. His clothes were well cut and made of fairly light worsted. He shaved every day and looked after his hands. But his frame was proletarian. He was a big, bony man.
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Long live Maigret
- By Adeliese Baumann on 11-19-14
By: Georges Simenon, and others
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Single & Single
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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A lawyer from the London finance house of Single & Single is shot dead on a Turkish hillside by people with whom he thought he was in business. A children's magician is asked by his bank to explain the unsolicited arrival of more than five million pounds sterling in his young daughter's modest trust. A freighter bound for Liverpool is boarded by Russian coast guards in the Black Sea. The celebrated London merchant venturer "Tiger" Single disappears into thin air.
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The spy who came back to the bank
- By Darwin8u on 03-12-14
By: John le Carré
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Hornet Flight
- By: Ken Follett
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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It's June 1941, and the low point of the war. England throws wave after wave of RAF bombers across the Channel, but somehow the Luftwaffe is able to shoot them down at will. The skies, indeed, the war itself seem to belong to Hitler.
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An Outstanding Spy Novel
- By C. McCoy on 03-13-05
By: Ken Follett
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Winter in Madrid
- By: C. J. Sansom
- Narrated by: Gordon Gordon
- Length: 21 hrs and 55 mins
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Winter in Madrid is set just after the bloody Spanish Civil War, with World War II looming over Europe. Reluctantly, Harry Brett looks for an old schoolmate who's become a person of interest for British intelligence.
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realistic characters in historical context
- By Annie on 10-04-09
By: C. J. Sansom
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Koko
- Blue Rose Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Peter Straub
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 22 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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KOKO. Only four men knew what it meant. Now they must stop it. They are Vietnam vets — a doctor, a lawyer, a working stiff, and a writer. Very different from each other, they are nonetheless linked by a shared history and a single shattering secret. Now, they have been reunited and are about to embark on a quest that will take them from Washington, D.C., to the graveyards and fleshpots of the Far East to the human jungle of New York.
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7 hours in and I am done
- By bionichands on 01-26-12
By: Peter Straub
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In the First Circle
- By: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Harry T. Willets - translator
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 31 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Moscow, Christmas Eve, 1949. The Soviet secret police intercept a call made to the American embassy by a Russian diplomat who promises to deliver secrets about the nascent Soviet Atomic Bomb program. On that same day, a brilliant mathematician is locked away inside a Moscow prison that houses the country's brightest minds. He and his fellow prisoners are charged with using their abilities to sleuth out the caller's identity, and they must choose whether to aid Joseph Stalin's repressive state - or refuse and accept transfer to the Siberian Gulag camps, and almost certain death.
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One of the five finest novels written in the 20th Century
- By Ellis D Vener on 04-08-19
By: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and others
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We the Living
- By: Ayn Rand
- Narrated by: Mary Woods
- Length: 18 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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We the Living portrays the impact of the Russian Revolution on three people who demand the right to live their own lives. At its center is a girl whose passionate love is her fortress against the cruelty and oppression of a totalitarian state. Rand said of this book: "It is as near to an autobiography as I will ever write."
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Emotionally intense, historically authentic
- By Geoffrey on 08-14-08
By: Ayn Rand
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The Half-Made World
- By: Felix Gilman
- Narrated by: Tamara Marston
- Length: 16 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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The world is only half made. What exists has been carved out amidst a war between two rival factions: the Line, paving the world with industry and claiming its residents as slaves; and the Gun, a cult of terror and violence that cripples the population with fear. The only hope at stopping them has seemingly disappeared - the Red Republic that once battled the Gun and the Line, and almost won. Now they're just a myth, a bedtime story parents tell their children, of hope.
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Terrible Story, Terrible Narrator
- By Aaron on 10-21-10
By: Felix Gilman
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What listeners say about Dark Star
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Darwin8u
- 06-06-13
Prewar Luftmensch examines Loyalty, Truth & Love
Alan Furst's great historical espionage novel, Dark Star is a prewar epic of Europe's moral ambiguities and shifting loyalties. Told through the eyes of Pravda journalist and Luftmensch (and sometimes NKVD spy) André Szara, the story stretches from Paris to Berlin, Warsaw, and even down to Izmir. In this novel Furst examines ideas of trust and suspicion, love and hate, magnetism and repulsion.
It is a novel about the compromises good men make to survive, the power that a few evil men have over millions, and the sacrifices a few Luftmenschen make to save thousands. Ultimately, Dark Star is a story of the Russian and German nonaggression pact (Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) at the beginning of WWII and how the Jewish members of Stalin's spy network were forced to make huge compromises to survive (most didn't survive) and how some were pushed into heroics because decency and the times demanded it.
The magic of this novel is that Furst is able to unweave the complicated nature of the prewar spy alliances and show all the different threads and colors and never lose the reader. His prose is amazing. His characters are nearly perfect. One of my favorite historical spy novels of all time.
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34 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Jeff Parent
- 07-31-04
Bright Star
I really enjoyed this book. It?s a story of espionage set in pre -WII Europe. Although its a work of fiction, the story is filled with accurate and detailed historical facts. In this sense, it reminded me of a good James Michner novel.
If I could have, I would have given the story a 4.5 star rating. There are a lot of details in it and it is NOT a book you can casually listen to. What makes it more challenging is the abundance of Polish, German, and Russian names and places? I had to listen to parts of the book a couple times to make sure I of my facts.
At times, the book may seem to lack direction, but things are tied together nicely near the end. The narrator is excellent and I?ll look for more by both the author and the narrator.
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30 people found this helpful
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Overall
- viennacoup
- 01-15-05
Atmospheric espionage novel
I am mystified by some of the comments made by other reviewers. This is not a pleasant listen but a rather terrifying tale of survival in the midst of two brutal totalitarian regimes.
It is set in the late 1930s in Europe. Stalin has the Soviet Union in his iron grip. Millions, mostly Jewish intelligentsia, have been purged. Hitler has risen to power in Germany and is ratcheting up his plan to eliminate Jews from Germany. The protagonist, Andre Szara, is a Polish born Jew and a noted foreign correspondent for Pravda. Many of his friends and associates have been purged and he knows his days are probably limited. Now the NKVD have asked him to spy for the Soviet Union and he can hardly say no. Soon he is running spies in Germany. There's a lot more going on as this is just the beginning.
I found the book to be very intelligently written and atmospheric. I am not an espionage expert, but everything seemed very realistic. The reader was fine. I recommend this book to anyone who likes realistic historical novels about espionage.
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24 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Paul
- 09-24-06
Dasvydanya, Tovarich
Furst spins a great yarn about a Jewish Soviet journalist who, in the years before WWII, becomes a spy for the Russians in Germany and France. The threat from his own spymasters in Moscow worries him almost as much as threat from the Nazis. He makes love to several women during his travels through Europe, but not in the half-comical James Bond/Don Juan way. He really falls in love with them. They break through the walls and rescue him from the enforced loneliness of espionage. And when he loses them, his grief is heavy and palpable.
Two things more: It helps to review a little bit of history before digging into this one, esp. the history leading up to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact of 1939. Much of what goes on will be clearer. Also, George Guidall narrates this one, and he does a superlative job (once again).
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17 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Robert
- 06-30-04
Dark Star
A good listen. Intersting characters, good plot, and terrific atmospherics. It helps to know a little about Soviet history or at least be willing to look things up if that curious. Even, however, without much historical knowledge, the plot is still fascinating and in its broad outlines makes sense. Think Carre, noir and Littel and you will have a sense of how the book reads.
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7 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Tom
- 06-20-08
not up to his standards
The narrator is the best Audible has and the author has some of the best spy novels (e.g., The Foreign Correspondent), but for me this novel was boring. I only made through Part I.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Josh
- 01-03-06
Fabulous writing and narration
One thing I've learned about audiobooks is that the narrator can make or break the experience. In this case, he takes exquisite, intelligent writing about an intruiging subject and creates the perfect atmosphere in which to enjoy it.
I could not stop listening to this book once I got throught the first two chapters.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall
- John
- 04-30-05
good-but not his best work
Some of his other books are better. This one had too broad a story to maintain long term interest. Well written as usual. Best part was his description of how Russians thought during the Stalinist purges of the 30s.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Sethaput
- 08-13-04
Pleasant enough
On the plus side, the book is wonderfully narrated. The narrator does a particularly job with voices, giving the listener a good feel for the characters. The writer creates a well-crafted sense of atmosphere and place, with a nice touch for details. On the minus side, despite length of book, couldn't really understand motivations of main character. Prose style also a bit self-concious, as if writer were searching too often for a clever turn of phrase. But overall pleasant and enjoyable.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Jeffrey A. Sherman
- 04-05-05
Terrific historical fiction
I was really pleasantly surprised by this book. I was never sure who to root for--the main character is a Stalinist in the era of the purges and he is spying on the Nazis. There was a lot going on here.
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3 people found this helpful