Spy Memoir

For Leslie Absher, secrecy is just another member of the family. Throughout childhood, her father's shadowy government job was ill-defined, her mother's mental health stayed off limits—even her queer identity remained hidden from her family and unacknowledged by Leslie herself.

The epic tale of a major inter-war novelist whose work was lauded by the literary establishment of the 1930s - but overshadowed by his biggest hit. As a 10-year-old working in a Leeds knacker's yard, Eric Knight had a dream. Emigrating to the USA, he reinvented himself as artist, newspaper reporter, film critic, and best-selling novelist. His books were praised by Ernest Hemingway and H L Mencken and turned into Hollywood movies.

Few people are deemed smart enough to be selected and trained as a spy for Her Majesty’s Government, and fewer qualify. The author is one such man, who was uniquely chosen at the age of 16, the only person still to pass selection without an education through the university system. Carefully written to avoid revealing government secrets, this is his personal story, thrilling, surprising, and an eye opener into the life of A Philippine Spy.

The GIs called her Joey. Hundreds owed their lives to the tiny Filipina who stashed explosives in spare tires, tracked Japanese troop movements, and smuggled maps of fortifications across enemy lines. As the Battle of Manila raged, Josefina Guerrero walked through gunfire to bandage wounds and close the eyes of the dead. Her valor earned her the Medal of Freedom, but what made her a good spy was also destroying her: leprosy, which so horrified the Japanese they refused to search her.

Boris Morros was a major figure in the 1930s and 1940s. The head of music at Paramount, nominated for Academy Awards, he then went on to produce his own films with Laurel and Hardy, Fred Astaire, Henry Fonda, and others. But as J. Edgar Hoover would discover, these successes were a cover for one of the most incredible espionage tales in the history of the Cold War-Boris Morros also worked for Russian intelligence. Morros's assignments took him to the White House, the Vatican, and deep behind the Iron Curtain.

Mikel Lejarza ha guardado silencio sobre su vida hasta este momento. Ahora ha decidido desvelar en primera persona en el libro Yo confieso todo lo que ha hecho y todo por lo que ha pasado. Ha escrito, con la ayuda del periodista Fernando Rueda, unas memorias duras, sinceras, en las que por primera vez cuenta todo lo que ha sido su vida, sin olvidarse de los momentos amargos, de su éxitos e, incluso, de aquellas actuaciones de las que no está especialmente satisfecho.

On a sunny September day in 1931, Soviet spy Stanislav Shumovsky walked down the gangplank of the SS Europa and into New York, concealed in a group of 65 Soviet students. Joseph Stalin had sent him to acquire American secrets to help close the USSR’s yawning technology gap. In this thrilling history, Svetlana Lokhova takes the listener on a journey through Stalin’s most audacious intelligence operation, piecing together every aspect of Shumovsky’s life and character using information derived from American and Russian archives.

Inside the Jihad is the story of a double agent operative working for UK and French intelligence by infiltrating Al Qaeda training camps. During his time in the camps, Nasiri met all of the top terrorist leaders, including Osama bin Laden, and engaged in a wide range of illegal activities. Strikingly well-written and gripping, Inside the Jihad is a terrifying, suspenseful read.

The powerful story of a CIA whistleblower and political prisoner who refused to give up on his American dream. In 2015, Jeffrey Sterling was sentenced to prison, convicted of violating the Espionage Act. Sterling, it is now clear, was another victim of our government's draconian crackdown on alleged leakers and whistleblowers.

On November 1, 2006, Alexander Litvinenko sipped tea in London's Millennium Hotel. Hours later, the Russian émigré and former intelligence officer, who was sharply critical of Russian president Vladimir Putin, fell ill and within days was rushed to the hospital. Fatally poisoned by a rare radioactive isotope slipped into his drink, Litvinenko issued a dramatic deathbed statement accusing Putin himself of engineering his murder.

Unlikely Allies is the story of three remarkable historical figures. Silas Deane was a Connecticut merchant and delegate to the Continental Congress as the American colonies struggled to break with England. Caron de Beaumarchais was a successful playwright who wrote The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro.

"Crooks And Spies I’ve Known" is a riveting autobiography by Keith Laws, a four-time successful escapee who spent an astounding 15 years on the run in Europe. Laws shares his firsthand experiences, having rubbed shoulders with notorious figures such as mobsters, bank robbers, and traitorous spies, including infamous names like John Walker, Aldridge Ames, and his surprising CIA acquaintance, Edwin Wilson.

The riveting true story of Noel W. Lamidey, an English immigrant who arrived in Australia in the 1920s and went on to establish one of the most extraordinary migration schemes the world had ever seen. Immigrants and Spies is the story of Noel W. Lamidey, who in 1946 was sent to London by the Chifley government to establish Australia's migration scheme. It describes the trials and tribulations he had in establishing such a gigantic organisation for Australia in another country.

In 1910, Olive MacLeod, a 30-year-old, redheaded Scottish aristocrat, received word that her fiancé, the famous naturalist Boyd Alexander, was missing in Africa. So she went to find him. Olive the Lionheart is the thrilling true story of her astonishing journey. In jungles, swamps, cities, and deserts, Olive and her two companions, the Talbots, come face-to-face with cobras and crocodiles, wise native chiefs, a murderous leopard cult, a haunted forest, and even two adorable lion cubs that she adopts as her own.

In this wickedly funny sequel to MI5 and Me, it is the 1950s, and reluctant typist and spy's daughter Lottie has had the bad luck to fall in love with Harry, a handsome if frustrated young actor, who has been press-ganged into the family business as an undercover agent in the Communist hotbed of British theatre. Together the young lovers embark on a star-studded adventure through the glittering world of theatre - but between missing files, disapproving parents, and their own burgeoning creative endeavours, life is about to become very complicated indeed....

As a child, Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop, along with her five brothers, was raised to revere the tribal legends of the Alsop and Roosevelt families. Her parents’ marriage was not what either of her parents had imagined it would be. Her mother’s strict Catholicism and her father’s restless ambition collided to create a strangely muted and ominous world, one that mirrored the whispered conversations in the living room as the power brokers of Washington came and went through their side door. Through it all, her mother, trained to keep secrets as a decoding agent with MI5, said very little.

Kristie Macrakis combines a storyteller's sense of drama with a historian's respect for evidence in this pause-resisting history of intrigue and espionage, love and war, magic and secrecy. From the piazzas of ancient Rome to the spy capitals of the Cold War, Macrakis' global history reveals the drama and importance of invisible ink. From Ovid's advice to use milk for illicit love notes, to al-Qaeda's hidden instructions in pornographic movies, this book presents stories of secret messaging that chart its evolution in sophistication and its impact on history.

In Murder in Manchuria, Scott D. Seligman explores an unsolved murder set amid the chaos that reigned in China in the run-up to World War II. The story unfolds against the backdrop of a three-country struggle for control of Manchuria—an area some called China's "Wild East"—and an explosive mixture of nationalities, religions, and ideologies. Semyon Kaspe, a young Jewish musician, is kidnapped, tortured, and ultimately murdered by disaffected, antisemitic White Russians, secretly acting on the orders of Japanese military overlords who covet his father's wealth.

Based on hundreds of hours of interviews with Sneum, Mark Ryan describes how Tommy made an incredible escape from Denmark in a battered old Hornet Moth aircraft - which he had to refuel in mid-air by climbing out on the wing. Later, he escaped from Denmark again - by walking across a treacherous frozen sea on which two of his companions died. Tommy brought over precious intelligence about the Nazi radar installations in Denmark and their atom bomb.

Spies played significant roles on both sides of the American Civil War, and many were women. These fascinating women contributed to the war effort when women could not vote or own property. Yet, Union or Confederate, all of these women had conviction. This audiobook explores the experiences of women whose courage and conviction played a key role in the outcome of the Civil War battle strategies and tactics. Their stories of courage, betrayal, and even love still resonate with women of today. North or South, all the women within lived fascinating lives that deserve to be told.