A Life in Secrets
Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII
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Narrated by:
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Nicola Barber
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By:
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Sarah Helm
About this listen
From an award-winning journalist comes this real-life cloak-and-dagger tale of Vera Atkins, one of Britain’s premiere secret agents during World War II.
As the head of the French Section of the British Special Operations Executive, Vera Atkins recruited, trained, and mentored special operatives whose job was to organize and arm the resistance in Nazi-occupied France. After the war, Atkins courageously committed herself to a dangerous search for 12 of her most cherished women spies who had gone missing in action. Drawing on previously unavailable sources, Sarah Helm chronicles Atkins’s extraordinary life and her singular journey through the chaos of post-war Europe.
Brimming with intrigue, heroics, honor, and the horrors of war, A Life in Secrets is the story of a grand, elusive woman and a tour de force of investigative journalism.
©2008 Sarah Helm (P)2018 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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I Read This Marvelous Book...
- By Douglas on 01-04-14
By: Thomas Harding
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Enemies of the People
- My Family's Journey to America
- By: Kati Marton
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 103
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 52
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
In this true-life thriller, Kati Marton draws on her skill as an investigative reporter to discover who her journalist parents really were---and how they survived the Nazis in Budapest and imprisonment by the Soviets during the Cold War.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Couldn't stop listening
- By Jane on 04-09-10
By: Kati Marton
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Defying Hitler
- The Germans Who Resisted Nazi Rule
- By: Gordon Thomas, Greg Lewis
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 22 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 59
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Story5 out of 5 stars 59
An enthralling story that vividly resurrects the web of everyday Germans who resisted Nazi rule.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Righteous Few
- By Linda on 05-19-19
By: Gordon Thomas, and others
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Sisters in Resistance
- How a German Spy, a Banker's Wife, and Mussolini's Daughter Outwitted the Nazis
- By: Tilar J. Mazzeo
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
In 1944, Benito Mussolini's daughter, Edda, gave Hitler and her father an ultimatum: release her husband, Galeazzo Ciano, from prison, or risk her leaking her husband's journals to the press. To avoid the peril of exposing Nazi lies, Hitler and Mussolini hunted for the diaries for months, determined to destroy them. Hilde Beetz, a German spy, was deployed to seduce Ciano to learn the diaries' location and take them from Edda. Drawing from in‑depth research and first-person interviews, Mazzeo gives listeners a riveting look into this little‑known moment in history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating WW2 account of women in resistance
- By lgmichael on 10-30-23
By: Tilar J. Mazzeo
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The Eternal Nazi
- From Mauthausen to Cairo, the Relentless Pursuit of SS Doctor Aribert Heim
- By: Nicholas Kulish, Souad Mekhennet
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4 out of 5 stars 41
Dr. Aribert Heim worked at the Mauthausen concentration camp for only a few months in 1941 but left a devastating mark. According to the testimony of survivors, Heim euthanized patients with injections of gasoline into their hearts. He performed surgeries on otherwise healthy people. Some recalled prisoners' skulls set out on his desk to display perfect sets of teeth. Yet in the chaos of the postwar period, Heim was able to slip away from his dark past and establish himself as a reputable doctor and family man in the resort town of Baden-Baden.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Not certain about this one...
- By Nancy on 11-24-22
By: Nicholas Kulish, and others
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Hunting Eichmann
- Chasing Down the World's Most Notorious Nazi
- By: Neal Bascomb
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,113
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 786
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 774
Best-selling author Neal Bascomb has garnered critical acclaim for such riveting nonfiction as Higher and Red Mutiny. Based on extensive interviews and previously classified details, Hunting Eichmann is a compelling account of the relentless hunt for the nefarious Adolf Eichmann.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Fascinating Story of Eichmann's Capture
- By S. Perry on 03-15-09
By: Neal Bascomb
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Operation Columba - The Secret Pigeon Service
- The Untold Story of World War II Resistance in Europe
- By: Gordon Corera
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25
Gordon Corera uses declassified documents and extensive original research to tell the story of the Operation Columba and the Secret Pigeon Service for the first time. A tale of wartime espionage, bitter rivalries, extraordinary courage, astonishing betrayal, harrowing tragedy, and a quirky, quarrelsome band of spy masters and their special mission, Operation Columba opens a fascinating new chapter in the annals of World War II. It is ultimately, the story of how, in one of the darkest and most dangerous times in history, under threat of death, people bravely chose to resist.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Belgium Pigeon
- By Don Rottiers on 08-10-21
By: Gordon Corera
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Ravensbruck
- Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women
- By: Sarah Helm
- Narrated by: Christa Lewis
- Length: 32 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 636
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 568
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Story5 out of 5 stars 568
On a sunny morning in May 1939, a phalanx of 867 women - housewives, doctors, opera singers, politicians, prostitutes - was marched through the woods 50 miles north of Berlin, driven on past a shining lake, then herded in through giant gates. Whipping and kicking them were scores of German women guards. Their destination was Ravensbrück, a concentration camp designed specifically for women by Heinrich Himmler, prime architect of the Holocaust.
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5 out of 5 stars
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My mother was a Ravensbruck survivor.
- By Stephen Sean Campbell on 07-06-20
By: Sarah Helm
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The Vatican Pimpernel
- The World War II Exploits of the Monsignor Who Saved Over 6,500 Lives
- By: Brian Fleming
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 145
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 130
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 132
During the German occupation of Rome from 1942-1944, Irishman Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty ran an escape organization for Allied POWs and civilians, including Jews. Safe within the Vatican state, he regularly ventured out in disguise to continue his mission, which earned him the nickname 'The Pimpernel of the Vatican'. When the Allies entered Rome, he and his collaborators - priests, nuns, and laypeople of numerous nationalities and religious beliefs - had saved the lives of over 6,500 people.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Enthralling
- By Jean on 05-27-15
By: Brian Fleming
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Americans in Paris
- Life and Death under Nazi Occupation
- By: Charles Glass
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 67
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4 out of 5 stars 52
In Americans in Paris, tales of adventure, intrigue, passion, deceit, and survival unfold season by season as renowned journalist Charles Glass tells the story of a remarkable cast of expatriates and their struggles in Nazi Paris. Before the Second World War began, approximately thirty thousand Americans lived in Paris, and when war broke out in 1939 almost five thousand remained.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Informative, but average engagement
- By Leann on 05-09-17
By: Charles Glass
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Into the Lion's Mouth
- The True Story of Dusko Popov: Word War II Spy, Patriot, and the Real-Life Inspiration for James Bond
- By: Larry Loftis
- Narrated by: Eric G. Dove
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 232
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 215
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 216
James Bond has nothing on Dusko Popov. A double agent for the Abwehr, MI5 and MI6, and the FBI during World War II, Popov seduced numerous women, spoke five languages, and was a crack shot, all while maintaining his cover as a Yugoslavian diplomat....
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2 out of 5 stars
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A boring account of exciting events.
- By Amazon Customer on 11-30-18
By: Larry Loftis
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Code Name: Lise
- The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII's Most Highly Decorated Spy
- By: Larry Loftis
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,510
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,352
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,348
1942: World War II is in full swing. Odette Sansom decides to follow in her war hero father’s footsteps by becoming an SOE agent to aid Britain and her beloved homeland, France. Five failed attempts and a plane crash later, she finally lands in occupied France to begin her mission. It is here that she meets her commanding officer, Captain Peter Churchill. As they successfully complete mission after mission, Peter and Odette fall in love. All the while, they are being hunted by the cunning German secret police sergeant, Hugo Bleicher, who finally succeeds in capturing them.
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4 out of 5 stars
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SKIP THE PROLOGUE!
- By Erica J. Conway on 09-17-19
By: Larry Loftis
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East West Street
- On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity"
- By: Philippe Sands
- Narrated by: David Rintoul, Philippe Sands
- Length: 14 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 300
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 265
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Story5 out of 5 stars 262
When human rights lawyer Philippe Sands received an invitation to deliver a lecture in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, he began to uncover a series of extraordinary historical coincidences. It set him on a quest that would take him halfway around the world in an exploration of the origins of international law and the pursuit of his own secret family history, beginning and ending with the last day of the Nuremberg Trials.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding!
- By lori on 05-07-18
By: Philippe Sands
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Dancing with the Enemy
- My Family's Holocaust Secret
- By: Paul Glaser
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster, Christa Lewis
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
The gripping story of the author's aunt, a Jewish dance instructor who was betrayed to the Nazis by the two men she loved, yet managed to survive WWII by teaching dance lessons to the SS at Auschwitz. Her epic life becomes a window into the author's own past and the key to discovering his Jewish roots.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing Unique
- By Nordic Artisan on 05-11-19
By: Paul Glaser
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A Spy at the Heart of the Third Reich
- By: Lucas Delattre
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 131
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 60
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Story4 out of 5 stars 59
A work of remarkable scholarship that moves with the swift pace of a John le Carre thriller, A Spy at the Heart of the Third Reich is a chilling addition to the literature of espionage. In 1943, a young official named Fritz Kolbe from the German foreign ministry arranged to meet with Allen Dulles, then an OSS officer in Switzerland and later the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
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4 out of 5 stars
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100% very good
- By Coco on 06-11-07
By: Lucas Delattre
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Agent M
- The Lives and Spies of MI5's Maxwell Knight
- By: Henry Hemming
- Narrated by: Henry Hemming
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 42
The fascinating, improbable true story of Maxwell Knight - the great MI5 spymaster and inspiration for the James Bond character M. Maxwell Knight was perhaps the greatest spymaster in history. He did more than anyone in his era to combat the rising threat of fascism in Britain during World War II, in spite of his own history inside this movement. He was also truly eccentric - a thrice-married jazz aficionado who kept a menagerie of exotic pets - and almost totally unqualified for espionage. Yet he had a gift for turning practically anyone into a fearless secret agent.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding in every way!
- By Grace O'Malley on 07-18-22
By: Henry Hemming
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Agent 110
- An American Spymaster and the German Resistance in WWII
- By: Scott Miller
- Narrated by: Noah Michael Levine
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 53
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4 out of 5 stars 45
This is the secret and suspenseful account of how OSS spymaster Allen Dulles led a network of Germans conspiring to assassinate Hitler and negotiate surrender to bring about the end of World War II before the Soviet's advance. Agent 110 is Allen Dulles, a newly minted spy from an eminent family. Dulles met with and facilitated the plots of Germans who were trying to destroy the country's leadership.
By: Scott Miller