The Cold War that kept the peace.

A truly great piece of writing opening the lives of men who care to serve their countries on both sides of the fence. If I had a complaint it would be the pronunciations of Russian towns and areas as well as the word 'submariners'. I know the Americans use a different 'English' but it jars. Still a great book and the adding of appendix a & b along with the interview of the investigative writers was really great when you are given some insight in what it takes to bring this to life. One of the truly great points that became apparent was the respect towards their enmities these men who went on these mission had for those they faced and when something went wrong how it played upon their minds that they could have caused the deaths of fellow submariners.

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007 meets 'Q' in a nuclear powered chariot

Where does Blind Man's Bluff rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Great real world cold war techno-thriller.
The Russians want to kill you, the Sea wants to crush you like spam in a can, and the technology wants to kill you, crap-out on you, or both...

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

007 meets 'Q' in a nuclear powered chariot

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Submarine Espionage

An good listen, it's a shame this book could not cover the operations in more modern times, but what was covered (1950-1980) was an very good listen. Recommended!

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Must for submarine fanatics

Series of excellent stories from each decade of the Cold War, must read for submarines geeks.

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fantastic listen from start to finish

first class in every way, very interesting and the fact that it all happened makes it a great listen

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Great story that has not been told before

this was a fascinating book on stories that have not been told before. This really shows how the cold War was fought under the oceans.
thoroughly recommend this book.

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Fantastic

I'm a marine engineering officer and I found this fantastic. Detailed enough to not be silly to anyone with knowledge of the subject but not over detailed to the point of boredom.

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Brilliant

I really enjoyed listening to this - informative, well-researched and structured. Although each chapter generally (not always) deals with a new topic, the chapters are more or less chronologically arranged, and there is a nice continuity where a number of characters turn up in several different chapters. If you're into submarines/war stuff then this is on a par with the famous ''Iron Coffins'' by Herbert Werner. I nearly didn't take the risk on buying Blind Man's Bluff after a ghastly experience with a previous audiobook by an American submariner (mercifully I can't remember the name of it) which, despite having absolute rave reviews, was utterly dreadful on many levels (I returned it).

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On These Battlefields, Warriors Whisper

I've been wanting to get this title on audio for ages and so snapped it up as soon as I came across it by accident during a search. As a submarine buff this is a "must have" book and even for those not so inclined this book sheds fascinating light on the covert and very secret spying and trailing missions during the Cold War.

The book covers the story of a different submarine and its crew and their involvement in the undercover missions in its own chapter which makes for a nice simple and logical structure. In addition, the events appear to be in chronological order as far as I can recall which also is useful.

There is a lot of information presented here and some of it I knew already, a lot of it I had no details on until reading this and a good portion was unknown to me. Of particular interest to me was the chapters covering the loss of the USS Scorpion and the recovery of the sunken Soviet Golf class submarine which I think was actually K-129 although, strangely, this book does not specify this. This recovery effort, referred to as Project Jennifer but also known as Project Azorian (not mentioned by the authors which would have been useful to clarify or connect the recovery effort to the official Jennifer project name) was perhaps the most audacious undertaking by the U.S Navy during the Cold War.

What I found useful in this book for the two incidents mentioned above was how the facts as related by the authors here go a long way in the case of the Scorpion tragedy to putting to rest the varied and very speculative books written about the loss of this submarine that suggest the theory that the Soviets sunk her. Although conspiracy theory books might seem more appealing and seductive to the imagination, they can often be platforms for the authors personal beliefs rather than based on available and verifiable facts. I was carried along by this a few years back and thought that maybe the Soviets did sink the Scorpion in retaliation for the loss of the aforementioned K-129 but upon reading the concise and logical chain of events and expert opinion set out so well, I am satisfied that the perhaps mundane but nonetheless most likely cause of the loss was to do with a defect in the Mk 37 torpedo battery.

The narrator did a decent job of reading this book but he did badly pronounce some of the Russian place names I noticed. That very minor gripe withstanding, the narration was excellent.

As ever with me in my nit picking nature, I did spot an error in the Appendix A, I think it was where the hull number of the USS Sam Houston was misquoted. Again, perhaps only a submarine geek like me might notice such a mistake but I just had to point that tiny detail out.

Now, what I want to know is when there is going to be a follow up book! Almost two decades has passed since the publication of this book and so I imagine there is plenty of material waiting to be unearthed for a second instalment. Incidentally, there is an interview with one of the authors at the end of the book which is a nice bonus and interesting and insightful.

Blind Mans Bluff is a prime example of how fact can be so much more amazing than fiction and if you had no real idea what went on during the Cold War with respect to the underwater spying game then this book will be a huge and exciting eye opener to you.

Well written in a compelling narrative style, I highly recommend it.

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Excellent

Fascinating, well-written, demands re-creating. Arguably the best cold War submarine espionage read. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

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