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The Russia House

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

John le Carré's first post-glasnost spy novel, The Russia House captures the effect of a slow and uncertain thaw on ordinary people and on the shadowy puppet-masters who command them

Barley Blair is not a Service man: he is a small-time publisher, a self-destructive soul whose only loves are whisky and jazz. But it was Barley who, one drunken night at a dacha in Peredelkino during the Moscow Book Fair, was befriended by a high-ranking Soviet scientist who could be the greatest asset to the West since perestroika began, and made a promise. Nearly a year later, his drunken promise returns to haunt him. A reluctant Barley is quickly trained by British Intelligence and sent to Moscow to liaise with a go-between, the beautiful Katya. Both are lonely and disillusioned. Each is increasingly certain that if the human race is to have any future, all must betray their countries ...

'Classic le Carré'
Sunday Times

©2011 John le Carré (P)2025 Penguin Audio Classics Espionage Spies & Politics Thriller & Suspense Russia Soviet Union
All stars
Most relevant
… finally gets going into classic Le Carre territory. Not his strongest spy novel, but suitably twisty, and reflective of the UK/US intelligence relationship at the time, But the real bonus is the unadvertised 30 min Afterword - a context setting autobiographical reflection written and narrated by Le Carré himself …. a little gem of a piece, and eerily prophetic of the phoenix-like reassertion of Russia and the failure of the US in 2025.

Really takes a while but then…

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Classic le carré. Short, not exactly sweet (obviously) but quietly entertaining. Highly recommended for fans of his early work.

The narration

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Probably the best read Audio book ever! I really enjoyed this book and also the commentary by John Le Carre afterwards

brilliantly read ! A classic

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Loved Barley's winding path, his character build, the wonderful vocab used in the marvelous descriptions of the everyday scene.

Marvelous descriptions of the everyday

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Just loved the characters. The detail, the tight rope walk of politics and the group think of the paranoid. Ignore the people who hate the narrators accent. That’s just the first character who on purpose has a nasal New Town keeping up with the Jones drone. The narrator actually does a fabulous job with a variety of characters all clearly distinguishable.

Beautifully detailed and yet exciting

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