Listen free for 30 days
-
The Billion Dollar Spy
- A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal
- Narrated by: John Moraitis
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Politics & Social Sciences, Politics & Government
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 £18.99
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...
-
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
-
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
-
Russians Among Us
- Sleeper Cells, Ghost Stories and the Hunt for Putin’s Agents
- By: Gordon Corera
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this meticulously researched and gripping, novelistic narrative, Gordon Corera uncovers the story of how Cold War spying has evolved and indeed, is still very much with us. Russians Among Us describes for the first time the story of deep cover spies in America and the FBI agents who tracked them. In intimate and riveting detail, it reveals new information about todays spiesas well as those trying to catch them and those trying to kill them.
-
-
that's how books should be written
- By Anonymous User on 13-07-20
-
The Dead Hand
- The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy
- By: David E. Hoffman
- Narrated by: Bob Walter
- Length: 20 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the Cold War, world superpowers amassed nuclear arsenals containing the explosive power of one million Hiroshimas. The Soviet Union secretly plotted to create the "Dead Hand," a system designed to launch an automatic retaliatory nuclear strike on the United States, and developed a fearsome biological warfare machine. President Ronald Reagan, hoping to awe the Soviets into submission, pushed hard for the creation of space-based missile defenses.
-
-
Gripping story of the cold war arms race
- By Matthew on 19-08-14
-
Thatcher's Spy
- My Life as an MI5 Agent Inside Sinn Féin
- By: Willie Carlin
- Narrated by: Matthew Forsythe
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Thatcher's Spy, the Cold War meets Northern Ireland's Dirty War in the remarkable real-life story of a deep under-cover British intelligence agent, a man now doomed forever to look over his shoulder. In March 1985, as he climbed the six steps of Margaret Thatcher's prime-ministerial jet on the runway of RAF Aldergrove, little did Willie Carlin know the role Freddie Scappaticci played in saving his life.
-
-
Hard to Listen to
- By cc.dee on 08-10-20
-
Spies in the Family
- An American Spymaster, His Russian Crown Jewel, and the Friendship That Helped End the Cold War
- By: Eva Dillon
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1975, 17-year-old Eva Dillon's family was living in New Delhi when her father was exposed as a CIA spy. Eva had long believed that her father was a US State Department employee. She had no idea that he was handling the CIA's highest ranking double agent - Dmitri Fedorovich Polyakov, a Soviet general whose code name was TOPHAT. Dillon's father and Polyakov had a close friendship that went back years, to their first meeting in Burma in the mid-1960s.
-
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
-
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
-
Russians Among Us
- Sleeper Cells, Ghost Stories and the Hunt for Putin’s Agents
- By: Gordon Corera
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this meticulously researched and gripping, novelistic narrative, Gordon Corera uncovers the story of how Cold War spying has evolved and indeed, is still very much with us. Russians Among Us describes for the first time the story of deep cover spies in America and the FBI agents who tracked them. In intimate and riveting detail, it reveals new information about todays spiesas well as those trying to catch them and those trying to kill them.
-
-
that's how books should be written
- By Anonymous User on 13-07-20
-
The Dead Hand
- The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy
- By: David E. Hoffman
- Narrated by: Bob Walter
- Length: 20 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the Cold War, world superpowers amassed nuclear arsenals containing the explosive power of one million Hiroshimas. The Soviet Union secretly plotted to create the "Dead Hand," a system designed to launch an automatic retaliatory nuclear strike on the United States, and developed a fearsome biological warfare machine. President Ronald Reagan, hoping to awe the Soviets into submission, pushed hard for the creation of space-based missile defenses.
-
-
Gripping story of the cold war arms race
- By Matthew on 19-08-14
-
Thatcher's Spy
- My Life as an MI5 Agent Inside Sinn Féin
- By: Willie Carlin
- Narrated by: Matthew Forsythe
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Thatcher's Spy, the Cold War meets Northern Ireland's Dirty War in the remarkable real-life story of a deep under-cover British intelligence agent, a man now doomed forever to look over his shoulder. In March 1985, as he climbed the six steps of Margaret Thatcher's prime-ministerial jet on the runway of RAF Aldergrove, little did Willie Carlin know the role Freddie Scappaticci played in saving his life.
-
-
Hard to Listen to
- By cc.dee on 08-10-20
-
Spies in the Family
- An American Spymaster, His Russian Crown Jewel, and the Friendship That Helped End the Cold War
- By: Eva Dillon
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the summer of 1975, 17-year-old Eva Dillon's family was living in New Delhi when her father was exposed as a CIA spy. Eva had long believed that her father was a US State Department employee. She had no idea that he was handling the CIA's highest ranking double agent - Dmitri Fedorovich Polyakov, a Soviet general whose code name was TOPHAT. Dillon's father and Polyakov had a close friendship that went back years, to their first meeting in Burma in the mid-1960s.
-
Intercept
- The Secret History of Computers and Spies
- By: Gordon Corera
- Narrated by: Gordon Corera
- Length: 15 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the exhilarating secret history of the melding of technology and espionage. Gordon Corera's compelling narrative, rich with historical details and characters, takes us from the Second World War to the internet age, revealing the astonishing extent of cyberespionage carried out today.
-
-
Excellent review of capabilities and the moral question
- By richard keane on 14-09-21
-
A Spy Named Orphan
- The Enigma of Donald Maclean
- By: Roland Philipps
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Interesting view of a very recent history
- By Chris Overs on 08-05-21
-
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
-
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
-
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 Pretext for War
- 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies
- By: James Bamford
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This book says outright what many have merely hinted at: that President George W. Bush knowingly misused the findings of the erroneous and incompetent U.S. intelligence community to provide a pretext for war with Iraq. The author hones in on the systematic weaknesses of the intelligence agencies that caused them to ignore the crucial signs leading up to the attacks of 9/11.
-
-
An important contribution to the history of 9/11
- By Amazon Customer on 01-04-20
-
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
-
Hanns and Rudolf: The German Jew and the Hunt for the Kommandant of Auschwitz
- By: Thomas Harding
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hanns Alexander was the son of a wealthy German family who fled Berlin for London in the 1930s. Rudolf Höss was a farmer and soldier who became Kommandant of Auschwitz and oversaw the deaths of over a million people. In the aftermath of World War II, the first British War Crimes Investigation Team is assembled to hunt down the senior Nazi officials responsible for the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen.
-
-
Moving, shocking and completely absorbing
- By James on 06-09-13
-
The Oligarchs
- Wealth and Power in the New Russia
- By: David Hoffman
- Narrated by: Steve Coulter
- Length: 22 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A brilliant investigative narrative: How six average Soviet men rose to the pinnacle of Russia's battered economy. David Hoffman, former Moscow bureau chief for
The Washington Post, sheds light onto the hidden lives of Russia's most feared power brokers: the oligarchs. Focusing on six of these ruthless men Hoffman reveals how a few players managed to take over Russia's cash-strapped economy and then divvy it up in loans-for-shares deals.
-
-
A great narrative ruined by appalling narration
- By Simon on 10-11-16
-
The Accidental Spy
- By: Sean O'Driscoll
- Narrated by: Gerry O'Brien
- Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David Rupert, a complete outsider with no connection to Ireland, rose to the very top of the Real IRA, all while working for the FBI and British intelligence. But the story is really about just how a bored, frustrated New York trucking manager becomes one of Britain’s most valued spies, brings down the entire IRA structure and makes $10 million in the process.
-
-
What a fantastic book
- By jackie quinn on 06-07-19
-
The Secret History of Flight 149
- The True Story Behind the Most Shocking Government Cover-Up of the Last Thirty Years
- By: Stephen Davis
- Narrated by: Colin Mace
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On 1 August 1990, British Airways Flight 149 departed from Heathrow airport, destined for Kuala Lumpur. It never made it there, and neither did its nearly 400 passengers. Instead, Flight 149 stopped to refuel in Kuwait, as Iraqi troops amassed on the border—delivering the passengers and crew into the hands of Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi army, to be used as 'human shields' during their invasion. Why did BA flight 149 proceed with plans to refuel in Kuwait City, even as all other flights were rerouted?
-
-
The Story Behind The Story
- By S. Morris on 03-09-21
Summary
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.
Drawing on previously classified CIA documents and interviews with firsthand participants, The Billion Dollar Spy is a brilliant feat of reporting and a riveting true story from the final years of the Cold War.
More from the same
Author
What listeners say about The Billion Dollar Spy
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 01-04-20
A struggle....
Loved the story, but unfortunately I struggled with the narration...... strange breaks in the reading. Seemed to drag on as the story feels like it was pulled from pillar to post to fill it out a bit. Fascinating story, but didn’t like the presentation.
11 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- David Kirkwood
- 24-06-19
Who on Earth is this narrator?
Good book, very interesting no doubt.
However this narrator is speaking in broken English and has the most enormous gaps between words and random pauses thrown in the middle of each sentence. It's incredibly off putting, like he's struggling to read the lines. It really ruins it. Play on 1.25 speed if possible to attempt to fix it.
11 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Thomas H.
- 08-08-21
Awful choice of voice over. Awful. Good story.
The problem with
awful voice over artists is
they often leave pauses
where no pause is necessary.
This makes for a very
difficult listening
experience.
They should rerecord the whole book with someone who knows
how to say more than three words
without pausing inappropriately
in the middle of a sentence.
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- KateS
- 11-07-19
Excellent
So interesting. Do read this alongside the other brilliant account covering UK’s intelligence successes The Spy and the Traitor.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Robert Hall
- 01-07-20
Interesting almost unknown spy
Detailed account of true story of CIA spy in Soviet Union. The story kept me listening. But the reader almost caused me to give up. At times I wondered if the narrator was real or was a computer. Poor intonation, inappropriate pauses, and in places much worse than the directions provided by my satnav.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lucy Duerden
- 23-07-19
Meh.
No doubt a thrilling story of event, but the repetition makes the delivery of the story boring. Maybe this was down the narrator?
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Stephen Speakman
- 20-08-20
First class
Great book and really well read. First time I have given 5 stars in each coloumn.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Thermonuclear
- 24-03-20
Espionage history at it's best.
I love this subject and this book is very good at describing the ins and outs of alot of what goes on whilst the CIA runs a high profile agent in the USSR. as the main subject is also little later on in the cold war, it's also little more current than some of the books about espionage that you come across. The side acts are also very famous spies, so I think overall people will enjoy this book as much as I did.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- A. Curtis
- 17-06-19
Classic Cold War Thriller
Very detailed book, very well read. There is a lot to learn even for someone who has read a lot of books on this subject. Very real and felt dangerous.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mr. Robert A. Mole
- 04-06-22
Fascinating and a real
Hard to believe it’s true and so many secrets were revealed but absolutely fascinating story. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Damian Murphy
- 25-10-21
Like listening to a movie
It’s insane to think this is a true story. Well written, well performed, well rounded.