Listen free for 30 days
-
The Best of Our Spies
- Narrated by: Stephen Critchlow
- Series: Spy Masters, Book 1
- Length: 16 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Historical Fiction
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 £25.99
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 Swiss Spy
- By: Alex Gerlis
- Narrated by: Stephen Critchlow
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's not unusual for spies to have secrets, but Henry Hunter has more than most, and after he is stopped by British Intelligence at Croydon airport on the eve of the Second World War, he finds he has even more. In March 1941 in Berlin, haunted by a dark episode from his past, he makes a fateful decision resulting in a dramatic journey to the Swiss frontier, with a shocking outcome.
-
-
Gripping
- By S on 07-08-19
-
Prince of Spies
- The Richard Prince Thrillers, Book 1
- By: Alex Gerlis
- Narrated by: Rupert Bush
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1942: a German spy comes ashore on a desolate stretch of Lincolnshire beach. But he is hunted down by a young detective, Richard Prince. The secret services have need of a man like him.... In occupied Europe, Denmark is a hotbed of problems for British intelligence. Rumours of a war-ending weapon being developed by the Germans are rife. Sent to Copenhagen, Prince is soon caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse. Dodging Gestapo agents, SS muscle and the danger of betrayal, his survival - and the war effort - hangs in the balance.
-
-
Sabotage by narrator ..
- By Joanna on 11-04-21
-
Agent in Berlin
- By: Alex Gerlis
- Narrated by: Duncan Galloway
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To live among wolves, first you must become one... An unmissable new spy thriller from best-selling master of the genre, Alex Gerlis. War is coming to Europe. British spymaster Barnaby Allen begins recruiting a network of agents in Germany. With diplomatic relations quickly unraveling, this pack of spies soon comes into their own: the horse-loving German at home in Berlin's underground; the young American sports journalist; the mysterious Luftwaffe officer; the Japanese diplomat and the most unlikely one of all... the SS officer's wife.
-
-
Laboured and meandering.
- By Peter Howlett on 10-02-22
-
The Winter Agent
- By: Gareth Rubin
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
February, 1944. A bitter winter grips occupied France, where Marc Reece leads a circuit of British agents risking their lives in order to sabotage the German war effort from within. But Reece has a second mission, secret even from his fellow agents - including Charlotte, the woman with whom he has ill-advisedly fallen in love. He must secure a document identifying a German spy at the heart of British intelligence. The fate of the Allied forces on D-Day is in his hands.
-
-
A really great read
- By Ian Brown on 18-08-21
-
Island Reich
- By: Jack Grimwood
- Narrated by: Simon Bubb
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
July 1940. As Britain braces itself for invasion, ex-Tommy and safecracker Bill O'Hagan is glad to have escaped the battlefield. But when a job goes wrong, he finds himself forced to serve his country once more. Spurned by his government and fearing for his life, the Duke of Windsor flees to Portugal with the woman for whom he abdicated the throne, Wallis Simpson. As a web of Nazi trickery threatens to ensnare him, his fate and the fate of Britain rest on one man.
-
-
Couldn't get on with this book
- By Keith on 21-06-22
-
City of Spies
- City of Spies, Book 1
- By: Mara Timon
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton
- Length: 13 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lisbon, 1943. After escaping from Nazi-Occupied France, SOE agent Elisabeth de Mornay, codename Cecile, receives new orders: she must infiltrate high society in neutral Lisbon and find out who is leaking key information to the Germans about British troop movements. As Solange Verin, a French widow of independent means, she will be able to meet all the rich Europeans who have gathered in Lisbon to wait out the war. One of them is a traitor, and she must find out who before more British servicemen die.
-
-
Bullets and Balenciaga
- By Anonymous User on 12-10-20
-
The Swiss Spy
- By: Alex Gerlis
- Narrated by: Stephen Critchlow
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's not unusual for spies to have secrets, but Henry Hunter has more than most, and after he is stopped by British Intelligence at Croydon airport on the eve of the Second World War, he finds he has even more. In March 1941 in Berlin, haunted by a dark episode from his past, he makes a fateful decision resulting in a dramatic journey to the Swiss frontier, with a shocking outcome.
-
-
Gripping
- By S on 07-08-19
-
Prince of Spies
- The Richard Prince Thrillers, Book 1
- By: Alex Gerlis
- Narrated by: Rupert Bush
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1942: a German spy comes ashore on a desolate stretch of Lincolnshire beach. But he is hunted down by a young detective, Richard Prince. The secret services have need of a man like him.... In occupied Europe, Denmark is a hotbed of problems for British intelligence. Rumours of a war-ending weapon being developed by the Germans are rife. Sent to Copenhagen, Prince is soon caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse. Dodging Gestapo agents, SS muscle and the danger of betrayal, his survival - and the war effort - hangs in the balance.
-
-
Sabotage by narrator ..
- By Joanna on 11-04-21
-
Agent in Berlin
- By: Alex Gerlis
- Narrated by: Duncan Galloway
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To live among wolves, first you must become one... An unmissable new spy thriller from best-selling master of the genre, Alex Gerlis. War is coming to Europe. British spymaster Barnaby Allen begins recruiting a network of agents in Germany. With diplomatic relations quickly unraveling, this pack of spies soon comes into their own: the horse-loving German at home in Berlin's underground; the young American sports journalist; the mysterious Luftwaffe officer; the Japanese diplomat and the most unlikely one of all... the SS officer's wife.
-
-
Laboured and meandering.
- By Peter Howlett on 10-02-22
-
The Winter Agent
- By: Gareth Rubin
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
February, 1944. A bitter winter grips occupied France, where Marc Reece leads a circuit of British agents risking their lives in order to sabotage the German war effort from within. But Reece has a second mission, secret even from his fellow agents - including Charlotte, the woman with whom he has ill-advisedly fallen in love. He must secure a document identifying a German spy at the heart of British intelligence. The fate of the Allied forces on D-Day is in his hands.
-
-
A really great read
- By Ian Brown on 18-08-21
-
Island Reich
- By: Jack Grimwood
- Narrated by: Simon Bubb
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
July 1940. As Britain braces itself for invasion, ex-Tommy and safecracker Bill O'Hagan is glad to have escaped the battlefield. But when a job goes wrong, he finds himself forced to serve his country once more. Spurned by his government and fearing for his life, the Duke of Windsor flees to Portugal with the woman for whom he abdicated the throne, Wallis Simpson. As a web of Nazi trickery threatens to ensnare him, his fate and the fate of Britain rest on one man.
-
-
Couldn't get on with this book
- By Keith on 21-06-22
-
City of Spies
- City of Spies, Book 1
- By: Mara Timon
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton
- Length: 13 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lisbon, 1943. After escaping from Nazi-Occupied France, SOE agent Elisabeth de Mornay, codename Cecile, receives new orders: she must infiltrate high society in neutral Lisbon and find out who is leaking key information to the Germans about British troop movements. As Solange Verin, a French widow of independent means, she will be able to meet all the rich Europeans who have gathered in Lisbon to wait out the war. One of them is a traitor, and she must find out who before more British servicemen die.
-
-
Bullets and Balenciaga
- By Anonymous User on 12-10-20
-
The Secret of the Grand Hôtel du Lac
- By: Kathryn Gauci
- Narrated by: Paige Reisenfeld
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Usa Today best-selling author, Kathryn Gauci, comes an unforgettable story of love, hope, and betrayal, and of the power of human endurance during history’s darkest days. Inspired by true events, The Secret of the Grand Hôtel du Lac is a gripping and emotional portrait of wartime France...a true pause-resister. February 1944. Preparations for the D-Day invasion are well advanced. When contact with Belvedere, one of the Resistance networks in the Jura region of Eastern France, is lost, Elizabeth Maxwell, is sent back to the region to find the head of the network.
-
The Miracle of Normandy
- By: Alex Gerlis
- Narrated by: Nicholas Camm
- Length: 1 hr and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
D-Day marked the start of the Battle for Normandy, which in turn led to the liberation of Nazi-occupied Europe and the defeat of Germany. Although it is seen as an unqualified success, the Battle for Normandy was a much more closely fought affair. It wasn’t until the 1970s that details of the Allies' top-secret and audacious deception plan emerged.
-
Nightfall Berlin
- By: Jack Grimwood
- Narrated by: Daniel Weyman
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1986, news that East-West nuclear-arms negotiations are taking place lead many to believe the Cold War may finally be thawing. For British intelligence officer Major Tom Fox, however, it is business as usual. Ordered to arrange the smooth repatriation of a defector, Fox is smuggled into East Berlin. But it soon becomes clear that there is more to this than an old man wishing to return home to die - a fact cruelly confirmed when Fox's mission is fatally compromised.
-
-
love this book
- By Amazon Customer on 19-09-18
-
Corpus
- Tom Wilde, Book 1
- By: Rory Clements
- Narrated by: Adam Sims
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This big-canvas international spy thriller marks the beginning of a brilliant new direction for Rory Clements. 1936. Europe is in turmoil. The Nazis have marched into the Rhineland. In Russia, Stalin has unleashed his Great Terror. Spain has erupted in civil war. In Berlin, a young Englishwoman evades the Gestapo to deliver vital papers to a Jewish scientist. Within weeks she is found dead, a silver syringe clutched in her fingers.
-
-
Annoying pronunciation
- By Susan on 20-03-18
-
Moskva
- By: Jack Grimwood
- Narrated by: Daniel Weyman
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Red Square, 1985. The naked body of a young man is left outside the walls of the Kremlin: frozen solid - like marble to the touch - and missing the little finger from his right hand. A week later Alex Marston, the headstrong 15-year-old daughter of the British ambassador, disappears. Army intelligence officer Tom Fox, posted to Moscow to keep him from telling the truth to a government committee, is asked to help find her. It's a shot at redemption. But Russia is reluctant to give up the worst of her secrets.
-
-
Great Book
- By Hagman95th on 15-05-17
-
The Trinity Six
- By: Charles Cumming
- Narrated by: Jot Davies
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Europe is still littered with the darkest secrets of the Cold War. And the most deadly revelation of them all is about to be made…Hard-up Russia expert Dr Sam Gaddis finally has a lead for a book that could set his career back on track. He has staggering new information about an unknown sixth member of the infamous Cambridge spy ring – a man who has evaded detection for his entire life
-
-
The Trinity Six
- By JOHN M. on 22-12-16
-
The Englishman
- By: David Gilman
- Narrated by: Matt Addis
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jeremy Summers, a British banker with a secret that could reveal MI6 intelligence sources involved in the war against drug-funded terrorism, has been seized at gunpoint, in broad daylight, on the streets of west London. An old contact, Raglan - an Englishman who served in the French Foreign Legion - is on his trail. Raglan's pursuit will lead him to the winter-ravaged wasteland of a remote Russian penal colony. A place that holds Russia's most brutal murderers. A place of death and retribution. How will he get in? More importantly, how will he get out...alive?
-
-
Brilliantly written book, and well narrated.
- By nev kidd on 15-07-20
-
Night Flight to Paris
- By: David Gilman
- Narrated by: Matt Addis
- Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Paris, 1943. The swastika flies from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Soldiers clad in field grey patrol the streets. Buildings have been renamed, books banned, art stolen and people disappeared. Amongst the missing is an Allied intelligence cell. Gone to ground? Betrayed? Dead? Britain's Special Operations Executive need to find out. They recruit ex-Parisian and Bletchley Park codebreaker Harry Mitchell to return to the city he fled two years ago.
-
-
Just one major glaring flaw..........
- By PD on 19-05-19
-
JUDAS 62
- By: Charles Cumming
- Narrated by: Elliot Fitzpatrick
- Length: 15 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1993: student Lachlan Kite is sent to post-Soviet Russia in the guise of a language teacher. In reality, he is there as a spy. Top secret intelligence agency BOX 88 has ordered Kite to extract a chemical weapons scientist before his groundbreaking research falls into the wrong hands. But Kite’s mission soon goes wrong and he is left stranded in a hostile city with a former KGB officer on his trail.
-
-
This is a fascinating and compulsive read.
- By Alan Bardos on 20-12-21
-
Zoo Station
- By: David Downing
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By 1939, Anglo-American journalist John Russell has spent 15 years in Berlin, where his German-born son lives. He writes human-interest pieces for British and American papers, avoiding the investigative journalism that could get him deported. But as war approaches, he faces the prospect of having to leave his son and his longtime girlfriend.
-
-
Well plotted and absorbing story
- By Tom on 30-11-10
-
The German Half-Bloods
- The Half-Bloods Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Jana Petken
- Narrated by: Alistair Davis
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dieter Vogel, a German industrialist, believes in protecting his family at all costs, but in a bid to keep his English wife and children safe, he is plunged into a well of deceit that tears the family apart. Doctor Paul Vogel is coerced into working in the Nazi eugenics program and soon discovers that sterilizing handicapped and mentally-ill Germans is just a prelude to a more lethal plan against those the Reich deem unworthy of life. Paul, trapped by the SS, seeks help from the unlikeliest of people and is plunged into a world of espionage and murder.
-
Blackout
- By: Simon Scarrow
- Narrated by: Simon Mattacks
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Germany goes to war, the Nazis tighten their terrifying grip. Paranoia in the capital is intensified by a rigidly enforced blackout that plunges the city into oppressive darkness every night, as the bleak winter sun sets. When a young woman is found brutally murdered, criminal Inspector Horst Schenke is under immense pressure to solve the case, swiftly. Treated with suspicion by his superiors for his failure to join the Nazi Party, Schenke walks a perilous line - for disloyalty is a death sentence.
-
-
Wow - Something I had never considered.
- By John L. on 25-05-21
Summary
France, July 1944: In the Pas de Calais, Nathalie Mercier, a young British special operations executive secret agent working with the French Resistance, disappears.
In London her husband, Owen Quinn, an officer with Royal Navy Intelligence, sets off on a perilous hunt through France in search of his wife. With the help of the Resistance, he finds Nathalie, but then the bitterness of war and its insatiable appetite for revenge catch up with them in a dramatic fashion.
Critic reviews
More from the same
What listeners say about The Best of Our Spies
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Joanna
- 19-10-17
But sadly not the best listen
The story is a surprising new take on an old theme, the research impressive but all the same I wasn't drawn in.
Perhaps it's just the flatness of the narrator who gives the German and French characters virtually interchangeable accents (which doesn't do a lot for dramatic impact ) and whose frequent emphasis on wrong words in sentences gives the impression he's discovering the book for the first time.
His mispronunciation of French words also manages to give one of the resistance fighters a sex change (from Françoise to François.)
But it's not just the reader, the writing is quite flat too. Does anyone else get as irritated as I do by repetitions of the same adjective in a sentence, people who are sat or stood - not sitting or standing, armchairs only ever slumped into? Probably not. And if the story's good perhaps I shouldn't care about these minor points of style. But for me these things get in the way to such an extent that in the end I'm not even listening to the story. I'm just tensed for the next fumbled sentence so I can yell at the narrator or the writer like some sad old git shouting at the telly.
I hung on till the end. It passed the time and I recommend it to more tolerant and easy-going listeners who just want a good spy yarn.
14 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Raven Mad
- 07-07-16
Wow! What a book!
Started so I had to finish! Compulsive, Enveloping. Found myself living the life. Just brilliant!
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lucy
- 29-06-17
A really absorbing listen
Where does The Best of Our Spies rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
Near the top, perhaps even first.
Who was your favorite character and why?
I can't chose one individual. A range of complex characters developed through the context of the war they were part of. Very absorbing and interesting, at times unexpected.
What does Stephen Critchlow bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
I found his delivery added to to the atmosphere of the book.
If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
Don't know.
Any additional comments?
I would thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys plots around espionage/ Second World War themes. It is a really good listen, and I found it really drew me in to the reality of living, and working during the Second World War, the traumas and dilemmas faced by its central characters. This is a boook I will remember and well worth a listen.
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Purplelotus
- 11-11-18
The Best of our Spy Stories
This is a cracking read, a real page turner. Can't recommend it more highly. Maybe a little far fetched but if you want a gripping well written yarn this will do it!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 14-03-18
Foreign names
It surely can't be difficult to find a reader who can pronounce foreign place names correctly. I wondered why Bologna had got into the story instead of Boulogne. Pronunciation of half a dozen French towns and streets was shocking to the point of making them nonsense. It's Avenue Foch as in Posh, not as in Loch!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- R. A
- 23-04-18
Strange reading style
My criticisms of the book are reviewed on amazon. I do not think Stephen Critchlow’s reading style helped. He is good at voices and accents but starts every new sentence with the same intonation and often puts emphasis on the wrong words in a sentence.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Silver Surfer
- 06-01-18
Not credible
What would have made The Best of Our Spies better?
Nothing.
What was most disappointing about Alex Gerlis’s story?
The novel’s plot up to June 1944 was just about credible but from there onwards it stretched credulity beyond reasonableness. I found the overall story deeply unsatisfactory.
What about Stephen Critchlow’s performance did you like?
Easy listening style and able to convey a wide cast of characters.
What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?
Deeply disappointed. Much inferior to The Swiss Spy by the same author.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mr Crispin Binder
- 29-09-18
Good Story but Depressing
Well written story but always filled with a sense of foreboding. I really enjoyed it but nearly stopped listening several times because I always felt that it could not end well for the two main characters whom I felt great sympathy for.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mark
- 06-03-18
A great listen
I felt the book was based upon a lot of real history from the 2nd World War which made it all the more interesting. I really enjoyed the story and thought the characters were well thought out. Excellent narration throughout.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
- Nike
- 02-06-16
Good experience
I really enjoyed this book.Very good description of characters and the local show was brilliant. Thanks very much for a few hours of oblique intrigue.
5 people found this helpful