Ben Macintyre. (2014). A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal. Unabridged Books on Tape.

Ben Macintyre. 2014. A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal. Books on Tape.

Ben Macintyre, A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal. Books on Tape, 2014.

Ben Macintyre. A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal. Unabridged Books on Tape, 2014.

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   • bioText: BEN MACINTYRE is a writer-at-large for The Times of London and the bestselling author of Double Cross, Operation Mincemeat, Agent Zigzag, The Napoleon of Crime, and Forgotten Fatherland, among other books. Macintyre has also written and presented BBC documentaries of the wartime espionage trilogy.
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A Spy Among Friends

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The epic true story of Kim Philby, the Cold War’s most infamous spy, from the “master storyteller” (San Francisco Chronicle) and author of Prisoners of the Castle.
Now an MGM+ series starring Damian Lewis, Guy Pearce, and Anna Maxwell Martin

“[A Spy Among Friends] reads like a story by Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, or John le Carré, leavened with a dollop of P. G. Wodehouse.”—Walter Isaacson, New York Times Book Review
Who was Kim Philby? Those closest to him—like his fellow MI6 officer and best friend since childhood, Nicholas Elliot, and the CIA’s head of counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton—knew him as a loyal confidant and an unshakeable patriot. Philby was a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain’s counterintelligence against the Soviet Union. Together with Elliott and Angleton he stood on the front lines of the Cold War, holding Communism at bay. But he was secretly betraying them both: He was working for the Russians the entire time. 
 
Every word uttered in confidence to Philby made its way to Moscow, sinking almost every important Anglo-American spy operation for twenty years and costing hundreds of lives. So how was this cunning double-agent finally exposed? In A Spy Among Friends, Ben Macintyre expertly weaves the heart-pounding tale of how Philby almost got away with it all—and what happened when he was finally unmasked.
 
Based on personal papers and never-before-seen British intelligence files and told with heart-pounding suspense and keen psychological insight, A Spy Among Friends is a fascinating portrait of a Cold War spy and the countrymen who remained willfully blind to his treachery.
 
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Shelf Awareness

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Walter Isaacson, New York Times Book Review
   • content: "Macintyre has produced more than just a spy story. He has written a narrative about that most complex of topics, friendship...When devouring this thriller, I had to keep reminding myself it was not a novel. It reads like a story by Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, or John Le Carré, leavened with a dollop of P.G. Wodehouse...[Macintyre] takes a fresh look at the grandest espionage drama of our era."
2. • premium: False
   • source: Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker
   • content: "Superb... Riveting reading."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Boston Globe
   • content: "Macintyre does here what he does best -- tell a heck of a good story. A Spy Among Friends is hands down the most entertaining book I've reviewed this year."
4. • premium: False
   • source: Dallas Morning News
   • content: "Macintyre is a superb writer, with an eye for the telling detail as fine as any novelist's...A Spy Among Friends is as suspenseful as any novel, too, as the clues tighten around Philby's guilt."
5. • premium: False
   • source: David Ignatius, Washington Post
   • content: "By now, the story of British double agent Harold 'Kim' Philby may be the most familiar spy yarn ever, fodder for whole libraries of histories, personal memoirs and novels. But Ben Macintyre manages to retell it in a way that makes Philby's destructive genius fresh and horridly fascinating."
6. • premium: False
   • source: Wall Street Journal
   • content: "A Spy Among Friends is a rollicking book. Mr. Macintyre is full of pep and never falters in the headlong rush of his narrative."
7. • premium: False
   • source: Newsday
   • content: "Vivid and fascinating...[Macintyre] succeeds admirably."
8. • premium: False
   • source: USA Today
   • content: "A crisply written tale of a classic intelligence case that remains relevant more than 50 years later."
9. • premium: False
   • source: The Huffington Post
   • content: "Excellent...I was thoroughly engrossed in this book, beginning to end. It has all the suspense of a good spy novel, and its characters are a complex mix of charm, eccentricity, intelligence and wit. And it offers a great--and mostly troubling--insight into the behind-the-scenes workings of those we entrust with the most important of our political and military secrets."
10. • premium: False
    • source: Publishers Weekly [starred]
    • content: "Working with colorful characters and an anything-can-happen attitude, Macintyre builds up a picture of an intelligence community chock-full of intrigue and betrayal, in which Philby was the undisputed king of lies...Entertaining and lively, Macintyre's account makes the best fictional thrillers seem tame."
11. • premium: False
    • source: Kirkus Reviews [starred]
    • content: "Gripping and as well-crafted as an episode of Smiley's People, full of cynical inevitability, secrets, lashings of whiskey and corpses."
12. • premium: False
    • source: Shelf Awareness [starred]
    • content: "Ben Macintyre (Double Cross) offers a fresh look at master double agent Kim Philby...Fans of James Bond will enjoy this look into the era that inspired Ian Fleming's novels, but any suspense-loving student of human nature will be shocked and thrilled by this true narrative of deceit."
13. • premium: False
    • source: David Grann, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost City of Z
    • content: "Ben Macintyre has a knack for finding the most fascinating storylines in history. He has done it again, with this spellbinding tale of espionage, friendship, and betrayal. Written with an historian's fidelity to fact and a novelist's eye for character, A Spy Among Friends is one terrific book."
14. • premium: False
    • source: Annie Jacobsen, author of Area 51 and Operation Paperclip
    • content: "Ben Macintyre is one of the most gifted espionage writers around. In A Spy Among Friends he weaves an absorbing tale of deceit and duplicity, of treason and betrayal. With exquisite detail and masterful control, Macintyre unveils the dark and treacherous interior worlds in which spies live."
15. • premium: False
    • source: Lynne Olson, bestselling author of Citizens of London and Those Angry Days
    • content: "In this spellbinding account of friendship and betrayal, Ben Macintyre masterfully describes how the Cambridge-educated Kim Philby evaded justice by exploiting the incestuous snobbery of the British old-boy network, which refused to believe that one of its own could be a major Soviet spy. As riveting as Macintyre's earlier books were, this searing portrait of Britain's ruling class is even better."
16. • premium: False
    • source: Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and author of The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames
    • content: "Ben Macintyre has written a truly fabulous book about the "fabulous" Kim Philby--the suave, dedicated, and most intriguing spy of the entire Cold War era. Philby and his colorful Cambridge comrades are endlessly fascinating. But Macintyre tells the devastating story in an entirely new fashion, with new sources and an astonishing intimacy."
17. • premium: False
    • source: Lady Antonia Fraser, author of Marie Antoinette: The Journey
    • content: "I have seldom had a better read than A Spy Among Friends. It reads like a thriller, a thriller of a peculiarly intricate and
18. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      Starred review from May 5, 2014
      In this engaging real-life spy story, Macintyre (Double Cross) pulls back the curtain on the life and exploits of Kim Philby, who served for decades in Britain’s intelligence community while secretly working as a Soviet double agent. Macintyre covers the full range of Philby’s career, from his work during WWII and the early years of the Cold War to his downfall and defection to the Soviet Union. Moreover, Macintyre widens his scope to look at Philby’s closest allies and friends, including fellow MI6 officer Nicholas Elliot and CIA operative James Jesus Angleton—the men who stood by him when all others were convinced of his as-yet-unproven guilt. Working with colorful characters and an anything-can-happen attitude, Macintyre builds up a picture of an intelligence community chock-full of intrigue and betrayal, in which Philby was the undisputed king of lies. There’s a measure of admiration in the text for Philby’s run of luck and audacious accomplishments, as when he was actually placed in charge of anti-Soviet intelligence: “The fox was not merely guarding the henhouse but building it, running it, assessing its strengths and frailties, and planning its future construction.” Entertaining and lively, Macintyre’s account makes the best fictional thrillers seem tame. Agent: Ed Victor, Ed Victor Ltd.

19. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      Starred review from September 29, 2014
      Macintyre’s latest biography chronicles the adventures of British intelligence officer Kim Philby, who secretly spied for the Soviet Union throughout most of his career. These events have inspired a host of fictional espionage thrillers, but Mac­intyre offers new context to address the forces that shaped Philby’s betrayal of his country. Veteran reader Lee effectively shifts between expository passages and dialogue. Philby’s career makes for an engrossing narrative, with accounts of double-crosses and triple-crosses, and Lee’s performance brings out the human element in the
      action-packed plot. His rendering of
      eccentric CIA counterintelligence leader James Jesus Angleton—an American with strong British ties and sensibilities—is especially memorable. Building to the climactic confrontation between Philby and his best friend and colleague, Nicholas Elliott, Lee’s delivery of the spy vs. spy banter evokes the essence of Cold War tension. A Crown hardcover.

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The epic true story of Kim Philby, the Cold War’s most infamous spy, from the “master storyteller” (San Francisco Chronicle) and author of Prisoners of the Castle.
Now an MGM+ series starring Damian Lewis, Guy Pearce, and Anna Maxwell Martin

“[A Spy Among Friends] reads like a story by Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, or John le Carré, leavened with a dollop of P. G. Wodehouse.”—Walter Isaacson, New York Times Book Review
Who was Kim Philby? Those closest to him—like his fellow MI6 officer and best friend since childhood, Nicholas Elliot, and the CIA’s head of counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton—knew him as a loyal confidant and an unshakeable patriot. Philby was a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain’s counterintelligence against the Soviet Union. Together with Elliott and...

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1. • source: Publishers Weekly
   • value: Listen Up Award
2. • source: Audio Publishers Association
   • value: Audie Award Nominee
3. • source: The New York Times
   • value: The New York Times Best Seller List

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Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal

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