Agents of Innocence

A Novel

By: David Ignatius

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

Agents of Innocence is the book that established David Ignatius's reputation as a master of the novel of contemporary espionage. Into the treacherous world of shifting alliances and arcane subterfuge comes idealistic CIA man Tom Rogers. Posted in Beirut to penetrate the PLO and recruit a high-level operative, he soon learns the heavy price of innocence in a time and place that has no use for it.

©1987 David Ignatius (P)2018 Tantor

Well written story.

This is a well-written book. The performance was excellent giving each character a different voice and, thereby, a different personality. The book is somewhat historical fiction interweaving real time periods and events with the fictitious story.
The main character, Tom Rogers, is an affable person who has human flaws. His boss, Hoffman, is pragmatic and non conventional….someone who you might envision not seeing eye-to-eye with the bureaucracy of an agency such as the CIA. Yet at the same time, understands the rules of the game. Overall an excellent book and great narrative.

Unexpected Ending

The book explores morality questions that take place in the spy game. Well written and narrated3, it is a must listen.

A classic

Interesting and intense, Agents of Innocence is well written and very well narrated I’m impressed. This book deserves to be a classic.

The rest of the story

The tender sensibilities of spies slide down a slippery slope leaving perdition in the wake of empires based on looting and pillage? Not to worry; colonialism is over, the white man’s burden is falling of its own weight. Ignatius does not need to apologize for the 1% today. Brzensky imagined the game would hold up. The 99% is cruising the information highway, watching the center as it folds. The book is well written, the reading of it wonderful. Excellent history described, maybe there’s a happier era fast coming on but other challenges will keep humanity busy.

Interesting

I’ll admit I almost stopped, listening in the beginning because it began so slowly. It was the character development, and the storylines that held my attention.

perfect spy novel

great story, wonderful development of fictional characters on a historical background. Ignatius knows what he's talking about. beautifully performed

Fantastic from start to finish

Engrossing and thrilling. Prepare for an immersion into the complexities of the Middle East and the horror of the Lebanese civil war

Nasal

WADR, Peter Berkrot's voice distracts annoyingly from the story like nails on a chalkboard. What's worse is it is not eligible for exchange. C'mon, man!

A story is hidden behind terrible performance

Peter Berkot was simply terrible as a narrator of this book. I cannot fathom how he decided absolutely every character and situation warranted a throaty secretive type voice. Drove me mad; particularly since the book is slow at its progress.

I checked his other books and it appears the producers did not make the mistake of hiring him again.

I will stay away from any book he narrates. Have not decided whether I will give another Ignatius book a chance. I purchased this one after reading a short story published in the NY Times over a series of weeks. It was excellent.

breathy over-actor tarnishes an OK story

certainly well short of le Carre's stature in this genre, but the story plot and characters would have been fine without the ham-handed and gratuitous sex and irrelevant romantic intrigues. It was the breathy narrator's overly emotional dialogue rendering that had me shutting it off out of frustration too many times.