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  • The Operators

  • On the Streets with Britain's Most Secret Service
  • By: James Rennie
  • Narrated by: Alex Hyde-White
  • Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (297 ratings)
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The Operators cover art

The Operators

By: James Rennie
Narrated by: Alex Hyde-White
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Summary

Few outside the security services have heard of 14 Company. As deadly as the SAS yet more secret, the operators of 14 Company are Britain's most effective weapon against international terrorism. For every bomb that goes off, 14 Company prevent 12. The selection process is the most physically, intellectually, and emotionally demanding anywhere in the world. This is the true story of one operator and of some of the most hair-raising military operations ever conducted on the streets of Britain.

©2016 James Rennie (P)2020 Pen and Sword Military

What listeners say about The Operators

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Beware of robots 🤖

Cannot fault the author or story, the content is excellent, detailed and a gives a great insight of the British army’s undercover activities in Ulster, however l only listened in small sections, as l couldn’t get on with the automated computerised voiceover used, which ruins the experience, it’s like being on the phone to a call centre , one chapter has an attempted Yorkshire accent which was laughable.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

one of the best secret service books!

I'd hear about the det before in the various sas books I'd read and how the sas would get training with the det. this book gave me a complete and detailed insight of the covert operations the detachment sqdn 14 would run in the fight against the UKs long war with terrorists on both sides of the boarder. it's well read and occasionally hard to listen to the code words etc but you soon get used to it. I'm now going to see if the author has written any more books, I thoroughly enjoyed this !!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Ingesting book, awful narration

A really good insight into the training and work of the operators in 14 Company. Unfortunately the narration really let it down. For some bizarre reason the narrator kept attempting regional accents that he was totally ill equipped to perform.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great story, poor narration

The overall story is excellent. However the narration really lets it down. He has very unusual pronunciation & at times by the time I’d worked out what he was saying a sentence or two had passed by.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Dreadful narration of an interesting history

Narration was terrible - accents bizarre and frequently emphasis on the wrong part of words. There was a lot on the selection aspects - would have liked to have heard more of operations. Could have used an editor

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Decent enough insight but please re-record it!

The story is a good enough insight into secret service (mostly the training side of things) touching on a bit of NI conflict but the narrator leaves a LOT to be desired. I listen to a fair amount of audiobooks in my car, mostly military and military history but this narrator is the worst I have encountered. His Welsh, Irish and often English accent is laughable, sounding somewhere between jalalabad and Western Australia, just awful. If you can over look that narration the story is worth a punt but they could do with a re-reading of it!

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great story but hilariously poor narration

Narrator’s agent : “I’ve got you a gig. You need to do provincial British accents - Yorkshire, Welsh, Ulster amongst others. Oh and how are you on French car makes? And this is an amazing insight into Special Forces ops - the listener should be feel the tension in the story. “

Narrator : “Watch this!”

Narrator’s Agent : <Face palm> “You’ll never work in this town again!”

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Accents

Some of the accents used during the recital were ridiculous and offputting. Either get someone with the correct accent to speak the part or just read it in the narrators true accent.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating

Good but would have been more listenable if the narrator hadn’t attempted to do d

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Narration not good

I enjoyed the book but wasn't keen on the narrator. He had a strange accent which seemed to change throughout the chapters.

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