The Irregulars

Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington

By: Jennet Conant

Narrated by: Simon Prebble

Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

Prior to the U.S. entering WWII, a small coterie of British spies in Washington, D.C., was formed. They called themselves the Baker Street Irregulars after the band of street urchins who were the eyes and ears of Sherlock Holmes in some Arthur Conan Doyle stories. This group constituted the very beginning of what would become M16, the British version of the CIA, and they helped support the fledgling American intelligence service, known at the time as the OSS.

Among them were writers Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, and the flamboyant Canadian industrialist turned professional saboteur William Stephenson, known by the code name "Intrepid", upon whom Fleming would later base his fictional M16 agent James Bond. Richly detailed and carefully researched, Conant's narrative uses never-before-seen wartime letters, diaries and interviews to create a fascinating, lively account of deceit, double dealing and moral ambiguity - all in the name of victory.

©2008 Jennet Conant (P)2008 HighBridge Company.

Critic reviews

"A thoroughly engrossing story, one Conant tells exceptionally well." ( Publishers Weekly)
"Reads like a classic spy novel....With this excellent history of personalities and politics during World War II, Conant adds successfully to her previous books that have made vivid the war's background players. Highly recommended." ( Library Journal)
"Simon Prebble, fastidiously pukka in his accent, has a fine 'top-secret' voice, shaded with condescension and understatedly urgent. Coming from him, the expression 'rumor mill' sounds especially insidious, and the deeds he describes - 'eavesdropping and peering over people's shoulders,' forgery, political subversion and general backstabbing - seem wonderfully dastardly." ( Washington Post Book World)

The Irregulars

Became bored immediately and didn't bother finishing.Linda

lots of info but borning

Has The Irregulars turned you off from other books in this genre?

maybe

Did Simon Prebble do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

there were not any characters in this book. Or, more correctly, there were characters but they never spoke directly enough for us to know their voices it was all narrated what they did and said.

Any additional comments?

The book has a lot of info but it is written like a social calendar not like a book on the amazing, creative and daring activities of the "basker street irregulars." True most spy activities are probably not exciting, but unless you enjoy hours and hours of listening to what parties one man went to listed out then you will not enjoy this book. Also, this book focuses on one man and touched briefly on many of the others, but even after listening to the book for 8 hours the character was flat and dull. I was also often was confused about when the activities took place. I could not keep a time line. I would often think we were months or years a head of when the actual event being described took place which was most disconcerting. A very thorough review of the facts, but one that is hard to get into.

Giant erratic report

This just describes what Dahl and people around him did, all of it, it doesn't seem to give you any pointers on what is important. It just drones on. It's not so much a book as a giant report. We'll, that is too harsh, but it was a rather frustrating listen. Couldn't finish.