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The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
- A George Smiley Novel, Book 3
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 7 hrs
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Publisher's summary
A number-one New York Times best seller for 34 weeks and the book that launched John le Carré's career worldwide.
In the shadow of the newly erected Berlin Wall, Alec Leamas watches as his last agent is shot dead by East German sentries. For Leamas, the head of Berlin Station, the Cold War is over. As he faces the prospect of retirement or worse - a desk job - Control offers him a unique opportunity for revenge. Assuming the guise of an embittered and dissolute ex-agent, Leamas is set up to trap Mundt, the deputy director of the East German Intelligence Service - with himself as the bait. In the background is George Smiley, ready to make the game play out just as Control wants.
Setting a standard that has never been surpassed, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is a devastating tale of duplicity and espionage.
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Veteran con artist Roy spots an obvious easy mark when he meets Betty, a wealthy widow, online. In no time at all, he's moved into Betty's lovely cottage and is preparing to accompany her on a romantic trip to Europe. Betty's grandson disapproves of their blossoming relationship, but Roy is sure this scheme will be a success. He knows what he's doing. As this remarkable feat of storytelling weaves together Roy's and Betty's futures, it also unwinds their pasts.
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Hope the movie is better than the book?
- By S. Smith on 10-17-19
By: Nicholas Searle
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The Unlikely Spy
- By: Daniel Silva
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 18 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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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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Pietr the Latvian
- Inspector Maigret, Book 1
- By: Georges Simenon, David Bellos - translator
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
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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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The Quiet American
- By: Graham Greene
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Alden Pyle, an idealistic young American, is sent to Vietnam to promote democracy amidst the intrigue and violence of the French war with the Vietminh, while his friend, Fowler, a cynical foreign correspondent, looks on.
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Terrible narrator nearly derails Greene novel.
- By Richard on 07-12-12
By: Graham Greene
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The Man in the Brown Suit & They Came to Baghdad
- Two Bestselling Agatha Christie Novels in One Great Audiobook
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Pretty, young Anne came to London looking for adventure. In fact, adventure comes looking for her—and finds her immediately at Hyde Park Corner tube station. Anne is present on the platform when a thin man, reeking of mothballs, loses his balance and is electrocuted on the rails.
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Agatha Christie and Emilia Fox are Fantastic!
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Meet the Tiger
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The fiction world of today needs a “Saint” more than it ever did. For years now that scene has been dominated by the “anti-heroes"—those grim gray operators in a sunless sub-culture where global issues are worked out with totally unemotional pragmatism, those hapless uninspired puppets manipulated and expended by ruthlessly dedicated little brothers of Big Brother. It made morbidly fascinating narrative, but it never gave anyone a lift until it climaxed in the hyper-gadgeted parodies of 007 extravaganzas.
By: Leslie Charteris
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The Shadow Killer
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- Narrated by: George Guidall
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Reykjavik, August 1941. When a travelling sales rep is found murdered in a Reykjavik flat, killed by a bullet from a Colt 45, the police initially suspect a member of the Allied occupation force. The British are in the process of handing over to the Americans, and the streets of Reykjavik are crawling with servicemen whose relations with the local women are a major cause for concern. Flovent, Reykjavik's sole detective, is joined by the young military policeman Thorson, the son of Icelandic emigrants to Canada.
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Not as good as previous in this series
- By Sue MB on 07-04-18
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Winter in Madrid
- By: C. J. Sansom
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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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The Echo
- By: Minette Walters
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
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Best-selling author Minette Walters captivates mystery aficionados throughout the world with her evocative, multi-layered novels, which have been translated into 22 languages. In The Echo she spins a finely-wrought web of secrets and betrayals, love and guilt that entangles everyone who touches it. A homeless man has been found dead of starvation—huddled next to a food-filled freezer—in a London socialite’s garage.
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Cumbersome, dull and not worth the time
- By Celia on 04-08-14
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Triple
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Overall
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As Egypt comes closer and closer to developing a nuclear bomb, the Mossad’s number one Israeli agent is given an impossible mission: to beat the Arabs in the nuclear arms race by finding and stealing two hundred tons of uranium. The world’s balance of power will shift. And the Mossad, the KGB, the Egyptians, and Fedayeen terrorists will play out the final, violent moves in this devastating game where the price of failure is a nuclear holocaust....
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Triple poorly performed
- By Jpop on 03-13-21
By: Ken Follett
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What listeners say about The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Walter
- 03-29-13
Great novel, but not Smiley...
I really love the novels of John le Carre, especially the Karla series. This may be le Carre's best work - better even than the Karla novels. The vertiginous manipulations, the moral ambiguities, the uncomfortable compromises made by the protagonist Alec Leamas, make this a gripping story with existential reverberations, even 50 years after it was first published.
If the ending of "Smiley's People" is a victory with chilling implications for the human soul, then the ending of this novel is a crushing defeat with hopeful inspiration for the individual. Nothing is ever as it seems in le Carre's best work, and that is doubly true here.
One note: even though it's listed as part of the Smiley series, George Smiley is barely even a minor character in this book - more of a shadowy emanation, and one which hints at another side of his identity.
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36 people found this helpful
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- Nazir
- 05-01-12
Great Book
What made the experience of listening to The Spy Who Came in from the Cold the most enjoyable?
John Le Carre is my favourite author and I have read most of his books including this one and I enjoyed the audio version just as much as the written one.
The narrator was excellent and the story was engrossing right from the beginning.
Highly recommend it specially if you are a fan of Le Carre.
What other book might you compare The Spy Who Came in from the Cold to and why?
Books narrated by Will Payton
Have you listened to any of Michael Jayston’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
not really - I like to stretch out the good books so I enjoy it longer rather than finishing them in one sitting
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13 people found this helpful
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- Angela
- 09-18-13
Great spy story
The story is wonderful and the narrator did a great job. The foreign accents could have been distracting, but the reader did very well with them and made them an integral part of the story. This was a good use of a credit.
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10 people found this helpful
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- William
- 01-05-13
A complex and intriguing story
What did you love best about The Spy Who Came in from the Cold?
The plot was most enjoyable. I envisioned Richard Burton in each scene, since I had previously viewed the movie.
What other book might you compare The Spy Who Came in from the Cold to and why?
Perhaps "The Day of the Jackal." Both books were very thoughtful and precise in articulating the characters.
Which scene was your favorite?
The opening scene with the spy crossing the check point.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No.
Any additional comments?
I would state that LeCarre is a thinking person's author.
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9 people found this helpful
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- TiffanyD
- 04-23-17
Almost made me a John le Carré fan
Any additional comments?
I'm not really a spy novel fan but I heard such raves about the Karla Trilogy and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (and espionage from mother Russia seems so relevant this season) that I decided to take the plunge. For the Karla Trilogy I had the audio books narrated by David Case/Frederick Davidson. Only unbelievable stubbornness kept me going. I don't know when I have ever had such difficultly tracking the plot of a book. At some point I downloaded the ebooks so I could just read for myself and that seemed to help.
So it was with reluctance that I picked up this last John le Carré on my list. Maybe it was just an easier book but I must credit the narrator. Way more engaging, way easier to track what's going on even with several crosses and double crosses.
I think I am probably done reading John le Carré (or spy novels in general) for a while. I appreciate the spotlight on amorality but not so much the casual sexism. Say all you want but about Alec Leamas being the anti-James Bond but le Carré's women often seem as multi-dimensional as your average Bond girl. But if I do decide to pick one up again I will know that this is the narrator to go for.
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8 people found this helpful
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- John Powell III
- 06-09-13
Gritty, real world cold war feel
Would you consider the audio edition of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold to be better than the print version?
I generally do prefer audiobook versions to print versions nowadays, though it is a great experience to be able to have time to sit down and read a great novel.
What other book might you compare The Spy Who Came in from the Cold to and why?
Seems trite, but Casino Royale, the original Bond by Ian Fleming. This book is more grounded in realism and gritty, and loss of life, etc. However, the time period is very reminiscent in each.
Which scene was your favorite?
The recollection of Limas about the recruitment of the German spy in Berlin's Presidium secretariat.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
At the realistic-seeming finish, where no one swoops in and saves the world, ala James Bond, I started out with an initial disappointed feeling, and then realized that how I felt was exactly what the author wanted us to feel.
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- JazzKat
- 04-30-13
His Best Book
I believe this to be the best of Le Carres' George Smiley books. Jayston was an excellent narrator
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- Jane
- 02-01-14
Crap ending! I was mad.
I don’t want to read tragedies. I want happy endings.
But many readers are ok with bad things happening to good guys, and they call this a classic, so I’ll mention some good things about it below.
The plot is excellent. A guy goes deep undercover doing a variety of things. There are complicated twists and turns. They were good.
There’s a bleak and dull quality to Leamas, the main character. I did not enjoy watching him, but his character fit well in the story.
I love eccentric characters, and this story has one, Miss Crail, the head librarian. Leamas worked for her for a few weeks. She hated Leamas. When he put his coat on her coat hook, she stood there fuming, in a silent rage, for a long time. When asked what was wrong she said nothing. Then she spent the morning on the phone mumbling to someone, probably her mother. I love wacko characters like Miss Crail, but she was just a tiny part of the story. Still it might be worth reading just for her.
STORY BRIEF:
Great Britain vs. East German intelligence agencies. Leamas is an agent for Great Britain. He wants to eliminate an East German agent. The setting is 1961 with a couple scenes at the Berlin Wall.
AUDIOBOOK NARRATOR:
Michael Jayston was good.
Genre: mystery suspense, espionage, tragic ending
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- N. Male
- 04-14-20
Almost lost an entire night's sleep
I am not a lover of the espionage genre, but a special deal from Audible and high ratings made me take the plunge. So, I started with Book 1 in the George Smiley series and will end with it here. Definitely worth the listen and wonderfully narrated by Michael Jayston. Don't expect much action, this is a book of words/dialogue. No one is who you think......
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- BallaghMan
- 08-20-15
Brilliant
Any additional comments?
Great book, terse, bleak, but plot moves along briskly and the characters are well fleshed out. Much shorter, and in every way a different book to than, say, The honorable schoolboy, but it shares many characteristics still.
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