Listen free for 30 days
-
A Spy Named Orphan
- The Enigma of Donald Maclean
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Historical
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Listen with a free trial
Buy Now for £34.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Cambridge Five
- A Captivating Guide to the Russian Spies in Britain Who Passed Information to the Soviet Union During World War II
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Colin Fluxman
- Length: 1 hr and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you want to discover the captivating history of the Cambridge Five, then pay attention.... During the poverty-stricken years of the Great Depression, when Britain’s financial markets plummeted and the poor and wealthy alike doubted the economic systems in which they participated, the potential of one political ideal shone like no other: Communism. Young intellectuals from the country’s very best schools discussed the premise of labor-value versus wealth-value, and a great many of them became card-carrying members of the Communist Party in Britain.
-
-
Interesting if not perfect
- By Cazza on 16-01-20
-
Stalin's Englishman
- The Lives of Guy Burgess
- By: Andrew Lownie
- Narrated by: Simon Shepherd
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Guy Burgess is the most important, complex and fascinating of 'The Cambridge Spies' - the group of British men recruited to pass intelligence to the Soviets during World War Two and the Cold War. Burgess' story takes us from his student days in 1930s Cambridge, where he was first approached by Soviet scouts, through his daring infiltration of the BBC and the British government to his final escape to Russia and lonely, tragic-comic exile there.
-
-
Outstanding! Fascinating subject!
- By iris on 26-11-15
-
The Greatest Traitor
- The Secret Lives of Agent George Blake
- By: Roger Hermiston
- Narrated by: Michael Tudor Barnes
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On 3 May 1961, after a trial conducted largely in secret, a man named George Blake was sentenced to an unprecedented 42 years in jail. By his own confession he was a Soviet spy, but the reasons for such a severe punishment were never revealed. To the public, Blake was simply the greatest traitor of the Cold War. Yet his story touches not only the depths of treachery, but also the heights of heroism.
-
-
All the detail in the right order
- By Gill Corrigan on 01-10-14
-
Double Cross
- The True Story of the D-Day Spies
- By: Ben Macintyre
- Narrated by: Michael Tudor Barnes
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
D-Day, 6 June 1944, the turning point of the Second World War, was a victory of arms. But it was also a triumph for a different kind of operation: one of deceit. At the heart of the deception was the 'Double Cross System', a team of double agents whose bravery, treachery, greed and inspiration succeeded in convincing the Nazis that Calais and Norway, not Normandy, were the targets of the 150,000-strong Allied invasion force.
-
-
Great story but...
- By Amazon Customer on 21-09-21
-
Dead Doubles
- The Extraordinary Worldwide Hunt for One of the Cold War's Most Notorious Spy Rings
- By: Trevor Barnes
- Narrated by: William Gaminara
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Portland Spy Ring was one of the most infamous espionage cases from the Cold War. People the world over were shocked when its exposure revealed the shadowy world of deep cover KGB 'illegals' - spies operating under false identities stolen from the dead.
-
-
Plodding, but DETAILED, and tediously PC
- By John Corcoran on 23-11-20
-
An Impeccable Spy
- Richard Sorge, Stalin’s Master Agent
- By: Owen Matthews
- Narrated by: Mike Grady
- Length: 16 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard Sorge was a man with two homelands. Born of a German father and a Russian mother in Baku in 1895, he moved in a world of shifting alliances and infinite possibility. A member of the angry and deluded generation who found new, radical faiths after their experiences on the battlefields of the First World War, Sorge became a fanatical communist - and the Soviet Union’s most formidable spy.
-
-
the greatest spy in history
- By Kendo nagassaki on 27-05-21
-
The Cambridge Five
- A Captivating Guide to the Russian Spies in Britain Who Passed Information to the Soviet Union During World War II
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Colin Fluxman
- Length: 1 hr and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you want to discover the captivating history of the Cambridge Five, then pay attention.... During the poverty-stricken years of the Great Depression, when Britain’s financial markets plummeted and the poor and wealthy alike doubted the economic systems in which they participated, the potential of one political ideal shone like no other: Communism. Young intellectuals from the country’s very best schools discussed the premise of labor-value versus wealth-value, and a great many of them became card-carrying members of the Communist Party in Britain.
-
-
Interesting if not perfect
- By Cazza on 16-01-20
-
Stalin's Englishman
- The Lives of Guy Burgess
- By: Andrew Lownie
- Narrated by: Simon Shepherd
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Guy Burgess is the most important, complex and fascinating of 'The Cambridge Spies' - the group of British men recruited to pass intelligence to the Soviets during World War Two and the Cold War. Burgess' story takes us from his student days in 1930s Cambridge, where he was first approached by Soviet scouts, through his daring infiltration of the BBC and the British government to his final escape to Russia and lonely, tragic-comic exile there.
-
-
Outstanding! Fascinating subject!
- By iris on 26-11-15
-
The Greatest Traitor
- The Secret Lives of Agent George Blake
- By: Roger Hermiston
- Narrated by: Michael Tudor Barnes
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On 3 May 1961, after a trial conducted largely in secret, a man named George Blake was sentenced to an unprecedented 42 years in jail. By his own confession he was a Soviet spy, but the reasons for such a severe punishment were never revealed. To the public, Blake was simply the greatest traitor of the Cold War. Yet his story touches not only the depths of treachery, but also the heights of heroism.
-
-
All the detail in the right order
- By Gill Corrigan on 01-10-14
-
Double Cross
- The True Story of the D-Day Spies
- By: Ben Macintyre
- Narrated by: Michael Tudor Barnes
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
D-Day, 6 June 1944, the turning point of the Second World War, was a victory of arms. But it was also a triumph for a different kind of operation: one of deceit. At the heart of the deception was the 'Double Cross System', a team of double agents whose bravery, treachery, greed and inspiration succeeded in convincing the Nazis that Calais and Norway, not Normandy, were the targets of the 150,000-strong Allied invasion force.
-
-
Great story but...
- By Amazon Customer on 21-09-21
-
Dead Doubles
- The Extraordinary Worldwide Hunt for One of the Cold War's Most Notorious Spy Rings
- By: Trevor Barnes
- Narrated by: William Gaminara
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Portland Spy Ring was one of the most infamous espionage cases from the Cold War. People the world over were shocked when its exposure revealed the shadowy world of deep cover KGB 'illegals' - spies operating under false identities stolen from the dead.
-
-
Plodding, but DETAILED, and tediously PC
- By John Corcoran on 23-11-20
-
An Impeccable Spy
- Richard Sorge, Stalin’s Master Agent
- By: Owen Matthews
- Narrated by: Mike Grady
- Length: 16 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard Sorge was a man with two homelands. Born of a German father and a Russian mother in Baku in 1895, he moved in a world of shifting alliances and infinite possibility. A member of the angry and deluded generation who found new, radical faiths after their experiences on the battlefields of the First World War, Sorge became a fanatical communist - and the Soviet Union’s most formidable spy.
-
-
the greatest spy in history
- By Kendo nagassaki on 27-05-21
-
The Spy and the Traitor
- By: Ben MacIntyre
- Narrated by: Ben Macintyre
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a warm July evening in 1985, a middle-aged man stood on the pavement of a busy avenue in the heart of Moscow, holding a plastic carrier bag. In his grey suit and tie, he looked like any other Soviet citizen. The bag alone was mildly conspicuous, printed with the red logo of Safeway, the British supermarket.
-
-
Brilliant Documentary of the Cold War
- By Paul on 03-10-18
-
Agent Zigzag
- The True Wartime Story of Eddie Chapman: Lover, Traitor, Hero, Spy
- By: Ben Macintyre
- Narrated by: Peter Wickham
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One December night in 1942, a Nazi parachutist landed in a Cambridgeshire field. His mission: to sabotage the British war effort. His name was Eddie Chapman, but he would shortly become MI5's Agent Zigzag. Dashing and suave, courageous and unpredictable, Chapman was by turns a traitor, a hero, a villain and a man of conscience. But, as his spymasters and many lovers often wondered, who was the real Eddie Chapman?
-
-
Superb, as usual
- By neop on 28-10-21
-
A Spy Among Friends
- Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal
- By: Ben Macintyre
- Narrated by: Michael Tudor Barnes
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kim Philby was the most notorious British defector and Soviet mole in history. Agent, double agent, traitor and enigma, he betrayed every secret of Allied operations to the Russians in the early years of the Cold War. Philby’s two closest friends in the intelligence world, Nicholas Elliott of MI6 and James Jesus Angleton, the CIA intelligence chief, thought they knew Philby better than anyone, and then discovered they had not known him at all.
-
-
amazing story
- By Anonymous User on 19-06-21
-
Agent Jack: The True Story of MI5's Secret Nazi Hunter
- By: Robert Hutton
- Narrated by: Roger Davis
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the incredible tale of Operation Fifth Column, a Second World War MI5 operation so secret that its existence was revealed by the National Archives for the first time only in 2014. Throughout the war and even for a couple of years afterwards, 'Agent Jack' - in reality, a bank clerk named Eric Roberts - acted as a Gestapo agent to whom hundreds of British-based Nazi sympathisers and informers passed their secrets, thinking that he was sending them back to Germany.
-
-
fantastic story. love hearing the secrets
- By Gary L on 10-05-19
-
Enemies Within: Communists, Spies and the Making of Modern Britain
- By: Richard Davenport-Hines
- Narrated by: Richard Trinder
- Length: 24 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What pushed Blunt, Burgess, Cairncross, Maclean and Philby into Soviet hands? With access to recently released papers and other neglected documents, this sharp analysis of the intelligence world examines how and why these men and others betrayed their country and what this cost Britain and its allies.
-
-
Quite shocking
- By David H. Furnival on 14-03-21
-
Agent Sonya
- Lover, Mother, Soldier, Spy
- By: Ben Macintyre
- Narrated by: Ben Macintyre
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the quiet Cotswolds village of Great Rollright in 1944, a thin and unusually elegant housewife emerged from her cottage to go on her usual bike ride. A devoted mother of three, attentive wife and friendly neighbour, Sonya Burton seemed to epitomise rural British domesticity. However, rather than pedalling towards the shops with her ration book, Sonya was heading for the Oxfordshire countryside to gather scientific secrets from a nuclear physicist. Secrets that would enable the Soviet Union to build the atomic bomb.
-
-
hmmmm
- By monty niblet on 03-10-20
-
Guy Burgess
- The Spy Who Knew Everyone
- By: Stewart Purvis, Jeff Hulbert
- Narrated by: Andrew Cullum
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cambridge spy Guy Burgess was a supreme networker. He also set a gold standard for conflicts of interest, working variously for the BBC, MI5, MI6, the War Office, the Ministry of Information and the KGB. Yet Burgess was never challenged by Britain's spy catchers: his superiors were convinced he was too much of a liability to have been recruited by Moscow. Now, with a major new release of hundreds of files into the National Archives, Purvis and Hulbert reveal just how this charming establishment insider was able to fool everyone for so long.
-
-
'A' level assignment style narrator
- By sophie on 23-11-16
-
Operation Mincemeat
- The True Spy Story that Changed the Course of World War II
- By: Ben Macintyre
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
April, 1943: A sardine fisherman spots the corpse of a British soldier floating in the sea off the coast of Spain and sets off a train of events that would change the course of the Second World War. Operation Mincemeat was the most successful wartime deception ever attempted, and the strangest. This is the true story of the most extraordinary deception ever planned by Churchill’s spies: an outrageous lie that travelled from a Whitehall basement all the way to Hitler’s desk.
-
-
Fascinating
- By Robyn on 28-02-17
-
Next Stop Execution
- The Autobiography of Oleg Gordievsky
- By: Oleg Gordievsky
- Narrated by: Saul Reichlin
- Length: 17 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Oleg Gordievsky was the highest ranking KGB officer ever to work for Britain. For 11 years, he acted as a secret agent, reporting to the British Secret Intelligence Service while continuing to work as a KGB officer. He gave such a clear insight into the mind and methods of the KGB and the whole system of Soviet government that he has been credited with doing more than any other individual in the West to accelerate the collapse of Communism.
-
-
Autobiography of Gordievsky
- By Lucy on 05-11-18
-
A Perfect Spy
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 20 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Magnus Pym, counsellor at the British Embassy in Vienna, has suddenly vanished, believed defected. The chase is on for a missing husband, a devoted father, and a life-time secret agent. Pym's life, it is revealed, is entirely made up of secrets. The race is on to find the perfect spy.
-
-
Fascinating insight into the mind of a spy
- By S J Dolding on 13-04-13
-
The Main Enemy
- The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB
- By: Milton Bearden, James Risen
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A landmark collaboration between a thirty-year veteran of the CIA and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, The Main Enemy is the inside story of the CIA-KGB spy wars, told through the actions of the men who fought them. Based on hundreds of interviews with operatives from both sides, The Main Enemy puts us inside the heads of CIA officers as they dodge surveillance and walk into violent ambushes in Moscow. This is the story of the generation of spies who came of age in the shadow of the Cuban missile crisis and rose to run the CIA and KGB in the last days of the Cold War.
-
-
Many moving parts
- By Olive Maitha on 16-09-19
-
The Billion Dollar Spy
- A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal
- By: David E. Hoffman
- Narrated by: John Moraitis
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
January 1977. While the chief of the CIA’s Moscow station fills his gas tank, a stranger drops a note into the car. In the years that follow, that stranger, Adolf Tolkachev, becomes one of the West’s most valuable spies. At enormous risk Tolkachev and his handlers conduct clandestine meetings across Moscow, using spy cameras, props, and private codes to elude the KGB in its own backyard - until a shocking betrayal puts them all at risk.
-
-
A struggle....
- By Anonymous User on 01-04-20
Summary
A gripping tale of betrayal and counterbetrayal that tells the story of the most enigmatic member of the Cambridge spy ring - Donald Maclean.
Donald Maclean was a star diplomat, an establishment insider and a keeper of some of the West's greatest secrets. He was also a Russian spy, driven by passionately held beliefs, whose betrayal and defection to Moscow reverberated for decades.
Christened ‘Orphan’ by his Russian recruiter, Maclean was the perfect spy and Britain’s most gifted traitor. But as he leaked huge amounts of top-secret intelligence, an international code-breaking operation was rapidly closing in on him. Moments before he was unmasked, Maclean vanished.
Drawing on a wealth of previously classified material, Roland Philipps now tells this story for the first time in full. Philipps unravels Maclean’s character and contradictions: a childhood that was simultaneously liberal and austere; a Cambridge education mixing in Communist circles; a polished diplomat with a tendency to wild binges; a marriage complicated by secrets; an accelerated rise through the Foreign Office and, above all, a gift for deception. Taking us back to the golden age of espionage, A Spy Named Orphan reveals the impact of one of the most dangerous and enigmatic Soviet agents of the 20th century, whose actions heightened the tensions of the Cold War.
More from the same
What listeners say about A Spy Named Orphan
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Chris Overs
- 08-05-21
Interesting view of a very recent history
Lots of information about how MI5 and SIS went about keeping our security leaking from 1930 to the 1960s. How we let down ourselves and our allies, how we should have changed from blindly entrusting an "elite" ruling class without hesitation.
An indictment of our lack of acceptance of loss of the empire and how we kept old institutional attitudes associated with that, how not having an open meritocracy as a template for government showed itself to be deeply flawed.
Maclean and his like were looking out for each other, protecting bad, unacceptable habits.
Public school, Oxbridge, a "one of us" attitude that still holds true, makes one wonder what blind snobbery is still damaging us today.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sue F
- 23-06-18
Fascinating!
Excellent narrator. For those thinking of a life in the Secret Service, this gives an insight into the stresses involved in secrecy and having to lie to defend one's ideals. It did make me wonder how anybody could be trusted in the world of espionage.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Maria Fernandez
- 07-08-19
Well researched and beautifully read
What a pleasure it has been to spend those hours listening to this great book.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- KENNETH SYME
- 17-04-19
A fine biography, seen in context of its time.
One of the best biographies I can recall - well researched but not encumbered with irrelevant detail. Excellentllently read by Jonathan Keeble.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Keith H. Slater
- 15-04-19
loved it!
Really enjoyed it!. The reading by Jonathan Keeble was superb. I will lookout for him again.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Daniel Parry
- 12-09-18
Great story
An enjoyable listen. A great story well read. I would sincerely recommend the audio book.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kindle Customer
- 23-01-22
Inept British old Boys .
Sad story of a deluded toff. Truly inept British Old Boys network let down the wonderful UK. Really highlights the need for a merit based way of preceding to keep the UK/USA way of life to be the prominent best solution.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- I. Finlayson
- 28-01-21
Fantastic biography of one of the Cambridge 5
I loved this well researched biography of Donald McLean. A great book for any espionage fans. The narration was excellent. I thoroughly look forward to listening to it again in the future.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- A. D. Buckingham
- 11-07-20
interesting story which joins the dots
Interesting story which joins the dots between the Cambridge 5. Spoilt by the narrator's tendency to make made up noises prior to every quote. Highly irritating!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- sophie
- 29-02-20
Yeah but why?
This biography conscientiously documents a life but somehow studiously avoids any real intimacy. The motivation of a person to lead a double life, to have this rich, often mad, secret life, is swept under the carpet. Once defected there is maybe one sentence describing his wife ( poor, long suffering woman - never really alluded to other that geographically) and how she moved in with Kim Philby! This is stated, time of affair noted, and then on with dates, and details that bring nothing into felt life.
He was always the shadowy enigma - the dull one of the three, I doubt he was, but this book does little to elucidate. However, well researched, a good narrator, and interesting for all that.