22 Best Intelligence & Espionage, History Books
Intelligence & Espionage, History is a popular category for many book lovers. Our team at Speechify has curated a list of the top Intelligence & Espionage, History audiobooks everyone must read.
See the top 22 Intelligence & Espionage, History audiobooks below.
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Agents of Influence
- By: Henry Hemming
- Narrator: Henry Hemming
- Length: 9 hours 48 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: October 08, 2019
- Language: English
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4.27(221 ratings)
4.27(221 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0025.98 USDThe astonishing story of the British spies who set out to draw America into World War IIAs World War II raged into its second year, Britain sought a powerful ally to join its cause-but the American public was sharply divided on the subject.The astonishing story of the British spies who set out to draw America into World War II... Read moreAs World War II raged into its second year, Britain sought a powerful ally to join its cause-but the American public was sharply divided on the subject. Canadian-born MI6 officer William Stephenson, with his knowledge and influence in North America, was chosen to change their minds by any means necessary.In this extraordinary tale of foreign influence on American shores, Henry Hemming shows how Stephenson came to New York–hiring Canadian staffers to keep his operations secret–and flooded the American market with propaganda supporting Franklin Roosevelt and decrying Nazism. His chief opponent was Charles Lindbergh, an insurgent populist who campaigned under the slogan “America First” and had no interest in the war. This set up a shadow duel between Lindbergh and Stephenson, each trying to turn public opinion his way, with the lives of millions potentially on the line. -
Surprise, Kill, Vanish
- By: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrator: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 19 hours 5 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: May 14, 2019
- Language: English
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4.26(2076 ratings)
4.26(2076 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.98 USDFrom Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen, the untold USA Today bestselling story of the CIA’s secret paramilitary units.Surprise . . . your target. Kill . . . your enemy. Vanish . . . without a trace. When diplomacy fails, and war is... Read moreFrom Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen, the untold USA Today bestselling story of the CIA’s secret paramilitary units.Surprise . . . your target. Kill . . . your enemy. Vanish . . . without a trace.When diplomacy fails, and war is unwise, the president calls on the CIA’s Special Activities Division, a highly-classified branch of the CIA and the most effective, black operations force in the world.Originally known as the president’s guerrilla warfare corps, SAD conducts risky and ruthless operations that have evolved over time to defend America from its enemies. Almost every American president since World War II has asked the CIA to conduct sabotage, subversion and, yes, assassination.With unprecedented access to forty-two men and women who proudly and secretly worked on CIA covert operations from the dawn of the Cold War to the present day, along with declassified documents and deep historical research, Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen unveils — like never before — a complex world of individuals working in treacherous environments populated with killers, connivers, and saboteurs.Despite Hollywood notions of off-book operations and external secret hires, covert action is actually one piece in a colossal foreign policy machine.Written with the pacing of a thriller, Surprise, Kill, Vanish brings to vivid life the sheer pandemonium and chaos, as well as the unforgettable human will to survive and the intellectual challenge of not giving up hope that define paramilitary and intelligence work. Jacobsen’s exclusive interviews — with members of the CIA’s Senior Intelligence Service (equivalent to the Pentagon’s generals), its counterterrorism chiefs, targeting officers, and Special Activities Division’s Ground Branch operators who conduct today’s close-quarters killing operations around the world — reveal, for the first time, the enormity of this shocking, controversial, and morally complex terrain. Is the CIA’s paramilitary army America’s weaponized strength, or a liability to its principled standing in the world? Every operation reported in this book, however unsettling, is legal. -
Someone Is Out to Get Us
- By: Brian Brown
- Narrator: Dan Woren
- Length: 17 hours 20 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: November 05, 2019
- Language: English
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4.08(82 ratings)
4.08(82 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0025.98 USDFrom UFOs to Dr. Strangelove, LSD experiments to Richard Nixon, author Brian Brown investigates the paranoid, panicked history of the Cold War. In Someone Is Out to Get Us, Brian T. Brown explores the delusions, absurdities, and best-kept secrets ofFrom UFOs to Dr. Strangelove, LSD experiments to Richard Nixon, author Brian Brown investigates the paranoid, panicked history of the Cold War.
In Someone Is Out to Get Us, Brian T. Brown explores the delusions, absurdities, and best-kept secrets of the Cold War, during which the United States fought an enemy of its own making for over forty years — and nearly scared itself to death in the process. The nation chose to fear a chimera, a rotting communist empire that couldn’t even feed itself, only for it to be revealed that what lay behind the Iron Curtain was only a sad Potemkin village.
In fact, one of the greatest threats to our national security may have been our closest ally. The most effective spy cell the Soviets ever had was made up of aristocratic Englishmen schooled at Cambridge. Establishing a communist peril but lacking proof, J. Edgar Hoover became our Big Brother, and Joseph McCarthy went hunting for witches. Richard Nixon stepped into the spotlight as an opportunistic, ruthless Cold Warrior; his criminal cover-up during a dark presidency was exposed by a Deep Throat in a parking garage.
Someone Is Out to Get Us is the true and complete account of a long-misunderstood period of history during which lies, conspiracies, and paranoia led Americans into a state of madness and misunderstanding, too distracted by fictions to realize that the real enemy was looking back at them in the mirror the whole time.
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Scorpions’ Dance
- By: Jefferson Morley
- Narrator: John Pruden
- Length: 12 hours 11 minutes
- Publisher: Macmillan Audio
- Publish date: June 07, 2022
- Language: English
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4.06(115 ratings)
4.06(115 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0026.99 USDFor the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in: The untold story of President Richard Nixon, CIA Director Richard Helms, and their volatile shared secrets that ended a presidency.Scorpions’ Dance by intelligence expert and investigativeFor the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in: The untold story of President Richard Nixon, CIA Director Richard Helms, and their volatile shared secrets that ended a presidency.
Scorpions’ Dance by intelligence expert and investigative journalist Jefferson Morley reveals the Watergate scandal in a completely new light: as the culmination of a concealed, deadly power struggle between President Richard Nixon and CIA Director Richard Helms.Nixon and Helms went back decades; both were 1950s Cold Warriors, and both knew secrets about the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba as well as off-the-books American government and CIA plots to remove Fidel Castro and other leaders in Latin America. Both had enough information on each other to ruin their careers.
After the Watergate burglary on June 17, 1972, Nixon was desperate to shut down the FBI’s investigation. He sought Helms’ support and asked that the CIA intervene–knowing that most of the Watergate burglars were retired CIA agents, contractors, or long-term assets with deep knowledge of the Agency’s most sensitive secrets. The two now circled each other like scorpions, defending themselves with the threat of lethal attack. The loser would resign his office in disgrace; the winner, however, would face consequences for the secrets he had kept.
Rigorously researched and dramatically told, Scorpions’ Dance uses long-neglected evidence to reveal a new perspective on one of America’s most notorious presidential scandals.
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A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press. -
In the Enemy’s House
- By: Howard Blum
- Narrator: David Colacci
- Length: 11 hours 12 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: February 20, 2018
- Language: English
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4.05(361 ratings)
4.05(361 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.004.99 USDThe New York Times bestselling author of Dark Invasion and The Last Goodnight once again illuminates the lives of little-known individuals who played a significant role in America’s history as he chronicles the incredible true story of aThe New York Times bestselling author of Dark Invasion and The Last Goodnight once again illuminates the lives of little-known individuals who played a significant role in America’s history as he chronicles the incredible true story of a critical, recently declassified counterintelligence mission and two remarkable agents whose story has been called “the greatest secret of the Cold War.”
In 1946, genius linguist and codebreaker Meredith Gardner discovered that the KGB was running an extensive network of strategically placed spies inside the United States, whose goal was to infiltrate American intelligence and steal the nation’s military and atomic secrets. Over the course of the next decade, he and young FBI supervisor Bob Lamphere worked together on Venona, a top-secret mission to uncover the Soviet agents and protect the Holy Grail of Cold War espionage–the atomic bomb.
Opposites in nearly every way, Lamphere and Gardner relentlessly followed a trail of clues that helped them identify and take down these Soviet agents one by one, including Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. But at the center of this spy ring, seemingly beyond the American agents’ grasp, was the mysterious master spy who pulled the strings of the KGB’s extensive campaign, dubbed Operation Enormoz by Russian Intelligence headquarters. Lamphere and Gardner began to suspect that a mole buried deep in the American intelligence community was feeding Moscow Center information on Venona. They raced to unmask the traitor and prevent the Soviets from fulfilling Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s threat: “We shall bury you!”
A breathtaking chapter of American history and a page-turning mystery that plays out against the tense, life-and-death gamesmanship of the Cold War, this twisting thriller begins at the end of World War II and leads all the way to the execution of the Rosenbergs–a result that haunted both Gardner and Lamphere to the end of their lives.
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Three Minutes to Doomsday
- By: Joe Navarro
- Narrator: George Newbern
- Length: 9 hours 32 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2017
- Language: English
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4.04(627 ratings)
4.04(627 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0023.99 USDAn intense cat-and-mouse game played between two brilliant men in the last days of the Cold War, this shocking insider’s story shows how a massive giveaway of secret war plans and nuclear secrets threatened America with annihilation.In 1988An intense cat-and-mouse game played between two brilliant men in the last days of the Cold War, this shocking insider’s story shows how a massive giveaway of secret war plans and nuclear secrets threatened America with annihilation.
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In 1988 Joe Navarro, one of the youngest agents ever hired by the FBI, was dividing his time between SWAT assignments, flying air reconnaissance, and working counter-intelligence. But his real expertise was “reading” body language. He possessed an uncanny ability to glean the thoughts of those he interrogated.
So it was that, on a routine assignment to interview a “person of interest”–a former American soldier named Rod Ramsay–Navarro noticed his interviewee’s hand trembling slightly when he was asked about another soldier who had recently been arrested in Germany on suspicion of espionage. That thin lead was enough for the FBI agent to insist to his bosses that an investigation be opened.
What followed is unique in the annals of espionage detection–a two-year-long battle of wits. The dueling antagonists: an FBI agent who couldn’t overtly tip to his target that he suspected him of wrongdoing lest he clam up, and a traitor whose weakness was the enjoyment he derived from sparring with his inquisitor. Navarro’s job was made even more difficult by his adversary’s brilliance: not only did Ramsay possess an authentic photographic memory as well as the second highest IQ ever recorded by the US Army, he was bored by people who couldn’t match his erudition. To ensure that the information flow would continue, Navarro had to pre-choreograph every interview, becoming a chess master plotting twenty moves in advance.
And the backdrop to this mental tug of war was the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the very real possibility that its leaders, in a last bid to alter the course of history, might launch a devastating attack. If they did, they would have Ramsay to thank, because as Navarro would learn over the course of forty-two mind-bending interviews, Ramsay had, by his stunning intelligence giveaways, handed the Soviets the ability to utterly destroy the US.
The story of a determined hero who pushed himself to jaw-dropping levels of exhaustion and who rallied his team to expose undreamed of vulnerabilities in America’s defense, Three Minutes to Doomsday will leave the reader with disturbing thoughts of the risks the country takes even today with its most protected national secrets. -
The Saboteur
- By: Paul Kix
- Narrator: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 7 hours 14 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: December 05, 2017
- Language: English
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4.01(931 ratings)
4.01(931 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0018.99 USDIn the tradition of Agent Zigzag comes this breathtaking biography, as fast-paced and emotionally intuitive as the very best spy thrillers, which illuminates an unsung hero of the French Resistance during World War II–Robert de LaIn the tradition of Agent Zigzag comes this breathtaking biography, as fast-paced and emotionally intuitive as the very best spy thrillers, which illuminates an unsung hero of the French Resistance during World War II–Robert de La Rochefoucald, an aristocrat turned anti-Nazi saboteur–and his daring exploits as a resistant trained by Britain’s Special Operations Executive.
A scion of one of the most storied families in France, Robert de La Rochefoucald was raised in magnificent chateaux and educated in Europe’s finest schools. When the Nazis invaded and imprisoned his father, La Rochefoucald escaped to England and learned the dark arts of anarchy and combat–cracking safes and planting bombs and killing with his bare hands–from the officers of Special Operations Executive, the collection of British spies, beloved by Winston Churchill, who altered the war in Europe with tactics that earned it notoriety as the “Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” With his newfound skills, La Rochefoucauld returned to France and organized Resistance cells, blew up fortified compounds and munitions factories, interfered with Germans’ war-time missions, and executed Nazi officers. Caught by the Germans, La Rochefoucald withstood months of torture without cracking, and escaped his own death, not once but twice.
The Saboteur recounts La Rochefoucauld’s enthralling adventures, from jumping from a moving truck on his way to his execution to stealing Nazi limos to dressing up in a nun’s habit–one of his many disguises and impersonations. Whatever the mission, whatever the dire circumstance, La Rochefoucauld acquitted himself nobly, with the straight-back aplomb of a man of aristocratic breeding: James Bond before Ian Fleming conjured him.
More than just a fast-paced, true thriller, The Saboteur is also a deep dive into an endlessly fascinating historical moment, telling the untold story of a network of commandos that battled evil, bravely worked to change the course of history, and inspired the creation of America’s own Central Intelligence Agency.
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The Secret World
- By: Christopher Andrew
- Narrator: Clive Chafer
- Length: 37 hours 42 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2018
- Language: English
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3.95(416 ratings)
3.95(416 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.95 USDThe history of espionage is far older than any of today’s intelligence agencies, yet the long history of intelligence operations has been largely forgotten. The codebreakers at Bletchley Park, the most successful World War II intelligenceThe history of espionage is far older than any of today’s intelligence agencies, yet the long history of intelligence operations has been largely forgotten. The codebreakers at Bletchley Park, the most successful World War II intelligence agency, were completely unaware that their predecessors in earlier moments of national crisis had broken the codes of Napoleon during the Napoleonic wars and those of Spain before the Spanish Armada.
Those who do not understand past mistakes are likely to repeat them. Intelligence is a prime example. At the outbreak of World War I, the grasp of intelligence shown by US President Woodrow Wilson and British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith was not in the same class as that of George Washington during the Revolutionary War and leading eighteenth-century British statesmen.
In this book, distinguished historian Christopher Andrew recovers much of the lost intelligence history of the past three millennia–and shows its relevance today.
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Code Girls
- By: Liza Mundy
- Narrator: Erin Bennett
- Length: 14 hours 4 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: October 10, 2017
- Language: English
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3.95(17165 ratings)
3.95(17165 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.98 USDThe award-winning New York Times bestseller about the American women who secretly served as codebreakers during World War II–a “prodigiously researched and engrossing” (New York Times) book that “shines a light on a hiddenThe award-winning New York Times bestseller about the American women who secretly served as codebreakers during World War II–a “prodigiously researched and engrossing” (New York Times) book that “shines a light on a hidden chapter of American history” (Denver Post).
Recruited by the U.S. Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges, more than ten thousand women served as codebreakers during World War II. While their brothers and boyfriends took up arms, these women moved to Washington and learned the meticulous work of code-breaking. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them. A strict vow of secrecy nearly erased their efforts from history; now, through dazzling research and interviews with surviving code girls, bestselling author Liza Mundy brings to life this riveting and vital story of American courage, service, and scientific accomplishment.
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The Moscow Rules
- By: Antonio J. Mendez
- Narrator: Wilson Bethel
- Length: 7 hours 2 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: May 21, 2019
- Language: English
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3.94(1628 ratings)
3.94(1628 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0025.98 USDFrom the spymaster and inspiration for the movie Argo, discover the “real-life spy thriller” of the brilliant but under-supported CIA operatives who developed breakthrough spy tactics that helped turn the tide of the Cold War (Malcolm... Read moreFrom the spymaster and inspiration for the movie Argo, discover the “real-life spy thriller” of the brilliant but under-supported CIA operatives who developed breakthrough spy tactics that helped turn the tide of the Cold War (Malcolm Nance).Antonio Mendez and his future wife Jonna were CIA operatives working to spy on Moscow in the late 1970s, at one of the most dangerous moments in the Cold War. Soviets kept files on all foreigners, studied their patterns, and tapped their phones. Intelligence work was effectively impossible. The Soviet threat loomed larger than ever.The Moscow Rules tells the story of the intelligence breakthroughs that turned the odds in America’s favor. As experts in disguise, Antonio and Jonna were instrumental in developing a series of tactics — Hollywood-inspired identity swaps, ingenious evasion techniques, and an armory of James Bond-style gadgets — that allowed CIA officers to outmaneuver the KGB.As Russia again rises in opposition to America, this remarkable story is a tribute to those who risked everything for their country, and to the ingenuity that allowed them to succeed. -
Lincoln’s Spies
- By: Douglas Waller
- Narrator: Danny Campbell
- Length: 18 hours 54 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2019
- Language: English
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3.92(169 ratings)
3.92(169 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0029.99 USDThis major addition to the history of the Civil War is a “fast-paced, fact-rich account” (The Wall Street Journal) offering a detailed look at President Abraham Lincoln’s use of clandestine services and the secret battles waged byThis major addition to the history of the Civil War is a “fast-paced, fact-rich account” (The Wall Street Journal) offering a detailed look at President Abraham Lincoln’s use of clandestine services and the secret battles waged by Union spies and agents to save the nation–filled with espionage, sabotage, and intrigue.
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Veteran CIA correspondent Douglas Waller delivers a riveting account of the heroes and misfits who carried out a shadow war of espionage and covert operations behind the Confederate battlefields. Lincoln’s Spies follows four agents from the North–three men and one woman–who informed Lincoln’s generals on the enemy positions for crucial battles and busted up clandestine Rebel networks.
Famed detective Allan Pinkerton mounted a successful covert operation to slip Lincoln through Baltimore before his inauguration after he learns of an assassination attempt from his agents working undercover as Confederate soldiers. But he proved less than competent as General George McClellan’s spymaster, delivering faulty intelligence reports that overestimated Confederate strength.
George Sharpe, an erudite New York lawyer, succeeded Pinkerton as spymaster for the Union’s Army of the Potomac. Sharpe deployed secret agents throughout the South, planted misinformation with Robert E. Lee’s army, and outpaced anything the enemy could field.
Elizabeth Van Lew, a Virginia heiress who hated slavery and disapproved of secession, was one of Sharpe’s most successful agents. She ran a Union spy ring in Richmond out of her mansion with dozens of agents feeding her military and political secrets that she funneled to General Ulysses S. Grant as his army closed in on the Confederate capital. Van Lew became one of the unsung heroes of history.
Lafayette Baker was a handsome Union officer with a controversial past, whose agents clashed with Pinkerton’s operatives. He assembled a retinue of disreputable spies, thieves, and prostitutes to root out traitors in Washington, DC. But he failed at his most important mission: uncovering the threat to Lincoln from John Wilkes Booth and his gang.
Behind these operatives was Abraham Lincoln, one of our greatest presidents, who was an avid consumer of intelligence and a ruthless aficionado of clandestine warfare, willing to take whatever chances necessary to win the war. Lincoln’s Spies is a “meticulous chronicle of all facets of Lincoln’s war effort” (Kirkus Reviews) and an excellent choice for those wanting “a cracking good tale” (Publishers Weekly) of espionage in the Civil War. -
The Spy Who Knew Too Much
- By: Howard Blum
- Narrator: Steve Hendrickson
- Length: 10 hours 6 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: June 07, 2022
- Language: English
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3.91(256 ratings)
3.91(256 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.99 USD“Howard Blum writes history books that read like thrillers.”–New York Times A retired spy gets back into the game to solve a perplexing case–and reconcile with his daughter, a CIA officer who married into the very family that“Howard Blum writes history books that read like thrillers.”–New York Times
A retired spy gets back into the game to solve a perplexing case–and reconcile with his daughter, a CIA officer who married into the very family that derailed his own CIA career–in this compulsive true-life tale of vindication and redemption, filled with drama, intrigue, and mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Goodnight, It’s a real-life thriller whose stunning conclusion will make headline news.
On a sunlit morning in September 1978, a sloop drifts aimlessly across the Chesapeake Bay. The cabin reveals signs of a struggle, and “classified” documents, live 9 mm cartridges, and a top-secret “burst” satellite communications transmitter are discovered aboard. But where is the boat’s owner, former CIA officer John Paisley?
One man may hold the key to finding out. Tennent “Pete” Bagley was once a rising star in America’s spy aristocracy, and many expected he’d eventually become CIA director. But the star that burned so brightly exploded when Bagley–who suspected a mole had burrowed deep into the agency’s core–was believed himself to be the mole. After a year-long investigation, Bagley was finally exonerated, but the accusations tarnished his reputation and tainted his career.
When Bagley’s daughter Christina, a CIA analyst, married another intelligence officer who was the son of the man who had played a key role in the investigation into Bagley, it caused a painful rift between the two. But then came Paisley’s strange death. A murder? Suicide? Or something else? Pete, now a retired spy, launches his own investigation that takes him deep into his own past and his own longtime hunt for a mole. What follows is a relentless pursuit to solve a spy story–and an inspiring tale of a man reclaiming his reputation and his family. It’s a very personal quest that leads to a shocking conclusion.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
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The Lion and the Fox
- By: Alexander Rose
- Narrator: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 8 hours 26 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: December 06, 2022
- Language: English
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3.89(54 ratings)
3.89(54 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.99 USDFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Washington’s Spies, the thrilling story of the Confederate spy who came to Britain to turn the tide of the Civil War–and the Union agent resolved to stop him. In 1861, soon after theFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Washington’s Spies, the thrilling story of the Confederate spy who came to Britain to turn the tide of the Civil War–and the Union agent resolved to stop him.
In 1861, soon after the outbreak of the Civil War, two secret agents–one a Confederate, the other his Union rival–were dispatched to neutral Britain, each entrusted with a vital mission.
The South’s James Bulloch, charming and devious, was to acquire a cutting-edge clandestine fleet intended to break President Lincoln’s blockade of Confederate ports, sink Northern merchant vessels, and drown the U.S. Navy’s mightiest ships at sea. The profits from gunrunning and smuggling cotton–Dixie’s notorious “white gold”–would finance the scheme. Opposing him was Thomas Dudley, a resolute Quaker lawyer and abolitionist. He was determined to stop Bulloch by any means necessary in a spy-versus-spy game of move and countermove, gambit and sacrifice, intrigue and betrayal. If Dudley failed, Britain would ally with the South and imperil a Northern victory. The battleground was the Dickensian port of Liverpool, whose dockyards built more ships each year than the rest of the world combined, whose warehouses stored more cotton than anywhere else on earth, and whose merchant princes, said one observer, were “addicted to Southern proclivities, foreign slave trade, and domestic bribery.”
From master of historical espionage Alexander Rose, The Lion and the Fox is the astonishing, untold tale of two implacable foes and their twilight struggle for the highest stakes.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
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Ethel Rosenberg
- By: Anne Sebba
- Narrator: Orlagh Cassidy
- Length: 10 hours 22 minutes
- Publisher: Macmillan Audio
- Publish date: June 08, 2021
- Language: English
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3.89(1131 ratings)
3.89(1131 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0026.99 USDNew York Times bestselling author Anne Sebba’s moving biography of Ethel Rosenberg, the wife and mother whose execution for espionage-related crimes defined the Cold War and horrified the world. In June 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, aNew York Times bestselling author Anne Sebba’s moving biography of Ethel Rosenberg, the wife and mother whose execution for espionage-related crimes defined the Cold War and horrified the world.
In June 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a couple with two young sons, were led separately from their prison cells on Death Row and electrocuted moments apart. Both had been convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage for the Soviet Union, despite the fact that the US government was aware that the evidence against Ethel was shaky at best and based on the perjury of her own brother.
This book is the first to focus on one half of that couple for more than thirty years, and much new evidence has surfaced since then. Ethel was a bright girl who might have fulfilled her personal dream of becoming an opera singer, but instead found herself struggling with the social mores of the 1950’s. She longed to be a good wife and perfect mother, while battling the political paranoia of the McCarthy era, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and a mother who never valued her. Because of her profound love for and loyalty to her husband, she refused to incriminate him, despite government pressure on her to do so. Instead, she courageously faced the death penalty for a crime she hadn’t committed, orphaning her children.
Seventy years after her trial, this is the first time Ethel’s story has been told with the full use of the dramatic and tragic prison letters she exchanged with her husband, her lawyer and her psychotherapist over a three-year period, two of them in solitary confinement. Hers is the resonant story of what happens when a government motivated by fear tramples on the rights of its citizens.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press
“Sebba vividly contrasts Ethel, who always put others first and whose poise during her nightmarish trial was used against her, with her devious accusers and rabid prosecutors. Ultimately, Sebba places the martyrdom of Ethel Rosenberg, a “profoundly moral woman,” on the long scroll of anti-Semitic and sexist atrocities, creating a redefining and redemptive work of astute protest and caution.” — Booklist, starred review
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Need to Know
- By: Nicholas Reynolds
- Narrator: Fred Sanders
- Length: 13 hours 44 minutes
- Publisher: HarperAudio
- Publish date: September 06, 2022
- Language: English
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3.86(45 ratings)
3.86(45 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0031.99 USDHistorian and former CIA officer Nicholas Reynolds, the New York Times bestselling author of Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy, uncovers the definitive history of American intelligence during World War II, illuminating its key role in securing victory.Historian and former CIA officer Nicholas Reynolds, the New York Times bestselling author of Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy, uncovers the definitive history of American intelligence during World War II, illuminating its key role in securing victory.
“Need to Know is the most thorough and detailed history available on the origins of U.S. intelligence.” –Michael Morell, former Deputy Director and Acting Director, CIA
The entire vast modern American intelligence system–the amalgam of three-letter spy services of many stripes–can be traced back to the dire straits that Britain faced at the end of June 1940. Before World War II, the US had no organization to recruit spies and steal secrets or launch secret campaigns against enemies overseas. It was only through Winston Churchill’s determination to mobilize the US to help in their fight against Hitler that the first American spy service was born, one that was built by scratch in the background of WWII.
In Need to Know, former CIA analyst and trained historian Nicholas Reynolds explores the birth, infancy, and adolescence of modern American intelligence. In this first definitive account, Reynolds combines little-known history and gripping spy stories to analyze the American codebreakers’ and spies’ origins and contributions to Allied victory, revealing how they laid the foundation for the Cold War–and all other conflicts to come.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
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The Unexpected Spy
- By: Tracy Walder
- Narrator: Devon Sorvari
- Length: 8 hours 10 minutes
- Publisher: Macmillan Audio
- Publish date: February 25, 2020
- Language: English
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3.84(2935 ratings)
3.84(2935 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.99 USDA highly entertaining account of a young woman who went straight from her college sorority to the CIA, where she hunted terrorists and WMDs “A thrilling tale…Walder’s fast-paced and intense narrative opens a window into life in twoA highly entertaining account of a young woman who went straight from her college sorority to the CIA, where she hunted terrorists and WMDs
“A thrilling tale…Walder’s fast-paced and intense narrative opens a window into life in two of America’s major intelligence agencies” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
When Tracy Walder enrolled at the University of Southern California, she never thought that one day she would offer her pink beanbag chair in the Delta Gamma house to a CIA recruiter, or that she’d fly to the Middle East under an alias identity.
The Unexpected Spy is the riveting story of Walder’s tenure in the CIA and, later, the FBI. In high-security, steel-walled rooms in Virginia, Walder watched al-Qaeda members with drones as President Bush looked over her shoulder and CIA Director George Tenet brought her donuts. She tracked chemical terrorists and searched the world for Weapons of Mass Destruction. She created a chemical terror chart that someone in the White House altered to convey information she did not have or believe, leading to the Iraq invasion. Driven to stop terrorism, Walder debriefed terrorists–men who swore they’d never speak to a woman–until they gave her leads. She followed trails through North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, shutting down multiple chemical attacks.
Then Walder moved to the FBI, where she worked in counterintelligence. In a single year, she helped take down one of the most notorious foreign spies ever caught on American soil. Catching the bad guys wasn’t a problem in the FBI, but rampant sexism was. Walder left the FBI to teach young women, encouraging them to find a place in the FBI, CIA, State Department or the Senate–and thus change the world.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press
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Top Secret Tales of World War II
- By: William B. Breuer
- Narrator: Christopher David
- Length: 10 hours 59 minutes
- Publisher: Dreamscape Media
- Publish date: September 01, 2020
- Language: English
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3.59(72 ratings)
3.59(72 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDWorld War II was fought by soldiers out of uniform. Stealth and ingenuity were their weapons. Victory was their only code of conduct. In this book, noted military historian William Breuer documents espionage–in all its forms–as itWorld War II was fought by soldiers out of uniform. Stealth and ingenuity were their weapons. Victory was their only code of conduct.
In this book, noted military historian William Breuer documents espionage–in all its forms–as it evolved in the hands of both Allied and Axis agents of intelligence and counterintelligence. Here you’ll find riveting tales of patriotism and treachery, subversion and sabotage, kidnappings and assassinations, and bribes and blackmailing–with frequently startling revelations about the secret wars behind both the battlefields and the headlines.
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The Liar
- By: Benjamin Cunningham
- Narrator: Keith Sellon-Wright
- Length: 9 hours 31 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: August 23, 2022
- Language: English
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3.54(43 ratings)
3.54(43 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0027.99 USDThe Cold War meets Mad Men in the form of Karel Koecher, a double agent whose shifting loyalties and over-the-top hedonism reverberated from New York to Moscow. In the mid-1970s, the CIA and KGB were both watching Karel Koecher closely–andThe Cold War meets Mad Men in the form of Karel Koecher, a double agent whose shifting loyalties and over-the-top hedonism reverberated from New York to Moscow.
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In the mid-1970s, the CIA and KGB were both watching Karel Koecher closely–and they were both convinced he was working for the enemy. They were both right. Traveling with his wife, Hana, Koecher posed as a Czechoslovak asylum seeker and arrived in the US as a Communist sleeper agent. After parlaying a doctorate from Columbia into a job at the CIA, Koecher proceeded to operate as a double agent at the height of the Cold War.
Shunning a low profile, the Koechers embraced Manhattan’s high life — with cocaine, swinging and parties emblematic of the times and their penchant for risk. Hana, who was no more than a shy teenager when she arrived, grew into a sophisticated international diamond dealer that relayed messages to Karel’s handlers. Riding a wave of euphoria, the Koechers felt unstoppable. But it was too good to last.
Using newly declassified documents, interrogation tapes and extraordinary first-hand accounts from the Koechers themselves, Cunningham reconstructs their double lives and the fading Cold War, where a strange moral fog made it hard to know what truth was being fought for, and to what end. -
Good Hunting
- By: Jack Devine
- Narrator: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hours 5 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2014
- Language: English
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3.53(459 ratings)
3.53(459 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDA master class in spycraft from one of its greatest practitioners Jack Devine ran Charlie Wilson’s War in Afghanistan. It was the largest covert action of the Cold War, and it was Devine who put the brand-new Stinger missile into the hands ofA master class in spycraft from one of its greatest practitioners
Jack Devine ran Charlie Wilson’s War in Afghanistan. It was the largest covert action of the Cold War, and it was Devine who put the brand-new Stinger missile into the hands of the mujahideen during their war with the Soviets, paving the way to a decisive victory against the Russians. He also pushed the CIA’s effort to run down the narcotics trafficker Pablo Escobar in Colombia. He tried to warn the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, that there was a bullet coming from Iraq with his name on it. He was in Chile when Allende fell, and he had too much to do with Iran-Contra for his own taste, though he tried to stop it. He also tangled with Rick Ames, the KGB spy inside the CIA, and hunted Robert Hanssen, the mole in the FBI.
Good Hunting: An American Spymaster’s Story is the spellbinding memoir of Devine’s time in the CIA, where he served for more than thirty years, rising to become the acting deputy director of operations, responsible for all of the agency’s spying operations. This is a story of intrigue and high-stakes maneuvering–all the more gripping when the fate of our geopolitical order hangs in the balance. But this book also sounds a warning to our nation’s decision makers: covert operations, not costly and devastating full-scale interventions, are the best safeguard of America’s interests worldwide.
Part memoir, part historical redress, Good Hunting debunks some of the myths surrounding the agency and cautions against its misuses. Beneath the exotic allure–living abroad, running operations in seven countries, serving successive presidents from Nixon to Clinton–this is a realist’s gimlet-eyed account of the CIA. As Devine sees it, the agency is now trapped within a larger bureaucracy, losing swaths of turf to the military, and most ominous of all, becoming overly weighted toward paramilitary operations after a decade of war. Its capacity to do what it does best–spying and covert action–has been seriously degraded.
Good Hunting sheds light on some of the CIA’s deepest secrets and spans an illustrious tenure–never before has an acting deputy director of operations come forth with such an account. With the historical acumen of Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars and gripping scenarios that evoke the novels of John le Carr+(r) even as they hew to the facts on the ground, Devine offers a master class in spycraft.
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Double Crossed
- By: Matthew Avery Sutton
- Narrator: Angelo Di Loreto
- Length: 12 hours 42 minutes
- Publisher: Hachette Audio
- Publish date: September 24, 2019
- Language: English
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3.48(79 ratings)
3.48(79 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0025.98 USDThe untold story of the Christian missionaries who played a crucial role in the allied victory in World War II What makes a good missionary makes a good spy. Or so thought “Wild” Bill Donovan when he secretly recruited a team ofThe untold story of the Christian missionaries who played a crucial role in the allied victory in World War II
What makes a good missionary makes a good spy. Or so thought “Wild” Bill Donovan when he secretly recruited a team of religious activists for the Office of Strategic Services. They entered into a world of lies, deception, and murder, confident that their nefarious deeds would eventually help them expand the kingdom of God.In Double Crossed, historian Matthew Avery Sutton tells the extraordinary story of the entwined roles of spy-craft and faith in a world at war. Missionaries, priests, and rabbis, acutely aware of how their actions seemingly conflicted with their spiritual calling, carried out covert operations, bombings, and assassinations within the centers of global religious power, including Mecca, the Vatican, and Palestine. Working for eternal rewards rather than temporal spoils, these loyal secret soldiers proved willing to sacrifice and even to die for Franklin Roosevelt’s crusade for global freedom of religion. Chosen for their intelligence, powers of persuasion, and ability to seamlessly blend into different environments, Donovan’s recruits included people like John Birch, who led guerilla attacks against the Japanese, William Eddy, who laid the groundwork for the Allied invasion of North Africa, and Stewart Herman, who dropped lone-wolf agents into Nazi Germany. After securing victory, those who survived helped establish the CIA, ensuring that religion continued to influence American foreign policy.Surprising and absorbing at every turn, Double Crossed is the untold story of World War II espionage and a profound account of the compromises and doubts that war forces on those who wage it.... Read more -
Double Agent
- By: Peter Duffy
- Narrator: George Newbern
- Length: 8 hours 25 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2014
- Language: English
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3.48(183 ratings)
3.48(183 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0017.99 USDThe never-before-told tale of the German-American who infiltrated New York’s Nazi underground in the days leading up to World War II: “Thrilling, well-researched, well-told, fascinating” (Minneapolis Star Tribune).He was the firstThe never-before-told tale of the German-American who infiltrated New York’s Nazi underground in the days leading up to World War II: “Thrilling, well-researched, well-told, fascinating” (Minneapolis Star Tribune).
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He was the first hero of World War II and yet the American public has never seen his face. William G. Sebold, a naturalized American of German birth, risked his life to become the first double agent in the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He spent sixteen months in the Nazi underground of New York City, consorting with a colorful cast of spies. Sebold was at the center of the most sophisticated investigation yet devised by the FBI, which established a short-wave radio station on Long Island to communicate with Hamburg spymasters and set up a “research office” in Times Square that allowed agents hidden behind a two-way mirror to film meetings conducted between Sebold and the spy suspects.
The result was the arrest and conviction of thirty-three spies, still the largest espionage case in American history. The guilty verdicts were announced in Brooklyn federal court just hours after Adolf Hitler declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941, which meant that the Fuhrer could not call upon a small army of embedded spies and saboteurs during the most trying days of the coming struggle. “As you know,” an FBI official later told J. Edgar Hoover, “Sebold gave us the most outstanding case in Bureau history.”
In Double Agent, Peter Duffy tells this full account. Here is a story “rich with eccentric characters, suspense, and details of spycraft in the war’s early days….The result is a compelling cultural history with all the intricacy and intrigue of a good spy novel” (The Boston Globe). -
Hollywood Double Agent
- By: Jonathan Gill
- Narrator: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 11 hours 27 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2020
- Language: English
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2.97(29 ratings)
2.97(29 ratings)Regular Price:Try for $0.0019.95 USDThe Cold War and the Golden Age of Hollywood meet in this story of the remarkable career of Boris Morros, film producer and Russian double agent. Boris Morros was a major figure in the 1930s and 1940s. The head of music at Paramount, nominated forThe Cold War and the Golden Age of Hollywood meet in this story of the remarkable career of Boris Morros, film producer and Russian double agent.
Boris Morros was a major figure in the 1930s and 1940s. The head of music at Paramount, nominated for Academy Awards, he then went on to produce his own films with Laurel and Hardy, Fred Astaire, Henry Fonda, and others. But as J. Edgar Hoover would discover, these successes were a cover for one of the most incredible espionage tales in the history of the Cold War–Boris Morros also worked for Russian intelligence.
Morros’s assignments took him to the White House, the Vatican, and deep behind the Iron Curtain. The high-level intelligence he provided the KGB included military secrets and compromising information on prominent Americans: his friends. But in 1947, Morros flipped. At the height of the McCarthy era, he played a leading role in a deadly tale.
Jonathan Gill’s Hollywood Double Agent is an extraordinary story about Russian spies at the heart of American culture and politics, and one man caught in the middle of the Cold War.
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Cliff Weitzman
Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.
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