A Very Expensive Poison
The Assassination of Alexander Litvinenko and Putin's War with the West
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Narrated by:
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Nicholas Guy Smith
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By:
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Luke Harding
About this listen
A true story of murder and conspiracy that points directly to Vladimir Putin, by The Guardian’s former Moscow bureau chief and author of The Snowden Files and Collusion
On November 1, 2006, journalist and Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in London. He died twenty-two days later. The cause of death? Polonium—a rare, lethal, and highly radioactive substance.
Here Luke Harding unspools a real-life political assassination story—complete with KGB, CIA, MI6, and Russian mobsters. He shows how Litvinenko’s murder foreshadowed the killings of other Kremlin critics, from Washington, DC, to Moscow, and how these are tied to Russia’s current misadventures in Ukraine and Syria. In doing so, he becomes a target himself and unearths a chain of corruption and death leading straight to Vladimir Putin.
From his investigations of the downing of flight MH17 to the Panama Papers, Harding sheds a terrifying light on Russia’s fracturing relationship with the West.
©2017 Luke Harding (P)2017 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
In Killer in the Kremlin, award-winning journalist John Sweeney takes listeners from the heart of Putin's Russia to the killing fields of Chechnya, to the embattled cities of an invaded Ukraine. In a disturbing exposé of Putin's sinister ambition, Sweeney draws on thirty years of his own reporting—from the Moscow apartment bombings to the atrocities committed by the Russian Army in Chechnya, to the annexation of Crimea and a confrontation with Putin over the shooting down of flight MH17—to understand the true extent of Putin's long war.
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Nothing new. Author has zero credibility
- By MICHAEL W. SHOEMAKER on 12-08-22
By: John Sweeney
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Freezing Order
- A True Story of Russian Money Laundering, State-Sponsored Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath
- By: Bill Browder
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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When Browder’s young Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in a Moscow jail in 2009, Browder cast aside his business career and made it his life’s mission to pursue justice for Sergei. One of the first steps of that mission was to uncover who had killed Sergei and profited from the $230 million corruption scheme that he had exposed. As Browder and his team tracked the money that flowed out of Russia—through the Baltics and Cyprus and on to Western Europe and the Americas—they discovered that Vladimir Putin himself was one of the beneficiaries of the crime.
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Red Notice Part II —- The Empire Struck Out
- By R. Alembik on 04-16-22
By: Bill Browder
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The Art of Betrayal
- The Secret History of MI6 - Life and Death in the British Secret Service
- By: Gordon Corera
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 17 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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From Berlin to the Congo, from Moscow to the back streets of London, these are the stories of the agents on the front lines of British intelligence. And the truth is often more remarkable than fiction.
MI6 has been cloaked in secrecy and shrouded in myth since it was created a hundred years ago. Our understanding of what it is to be a spy has been largely defined by the fictional worlds of Ian Fleming and John le Carré. Gordon Corera provides a unique and unprecedented insight into this secret world and the reality that lies behind the fiction.
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Good details but lacks thorough research
- By Unapologetic on 09-06-17
By: Gordon Corera
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Bombshell
- The Night Bobby Kennedy Killed Marilyn Monroe
- By: Mike Rothmiller, Douglas Thompson
- Narrated by: Mark Elstob
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing on secret police files, Marilyn Monroe's private diary, and never before published first-hand testimony, this book proves that Robert Kennedy was directly responsible for her death. It details the legendary star's tumultuous personal involvement with him and his brother, President John Kennedy, and how they sought to silence her. The new evidence and testimony is provided by Mike Rothmiller who, as a detective of the Organized Crime Intelligence Division of the LAPD, had direct access to hundreds of secret files on exactly what happened at Monroe's home on August 5, 1962.
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LA Confidential, Assassinations and Hollywood
- By grace on 12-29-22
By: Mike Rothmiller, and others
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Mafia Spies
- The Inside Story of the CIA, Gangsters, JFK, and Castro
- By: Thomas Maier
- Narrated by: Fred Stella
- Length: 15 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Mafia Spies is the definitive account of America’s most remarkable espionage plots ever - with CIA agents, mob hitmen, “kompromat” sex, presidential indiscretion, and James Bond-like killing devices together in a top-secret mystery full of surprise twists and deadly intrigue. In the early 1960s, two top gangsters, Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana, were hired by the CIA to kill Cuba’s Communist leader, Fidel Castro, only to wind up murdered themselves amidst Congressional hearings and a national debate about the JFK assassination.
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Stick to history
- By Amazon Customer on 05-04-19
By: Thomas Maier
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CIA Rogues and the Killing of the Kennedys
- How and Why US Agents Conspired to Assassinate JFK and RFK
- By: Patrick Nolan, Dr. Henry C. Lee - foreword
- Narrated by: Stephen Bowlby
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In CIA Rogues and the Killing of the Kennedys, Patrick Nolan fearlessly investigates the CIA’s involvement in the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy - why the brothers needed to die and how rogue intelligence agents orchestrated history’s most infamous conspiracy. Nolan furthers the research of leading scholars who agree that there remain serious unanswered questions regarding the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy.
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Where are we now?
- By Payton on 04-12-17
By: Patrick Nolan, and others
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Destiny Betrayed, Second Edition
- JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case
- By: James DiEugenio
- Narrated by: Paul Neal Rohrer
- Length: 23 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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If you enjoyed the chilling experience of In Cold Blood and were at the edge of your seat while watching Oliver Stone’s JFK, you’ll love this investigative look into all the facets of one of the top conspiracies of the 20th century and beyond. DiEugenio, who has spent decades researching the Kennedy assassination, takes both an analytical and conversational approach to his fascinating exploration of the pivotal historical events and scandals surrounding that day.
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Essential Book but Narration Almost Ruins it
- By Nathan D. Backlund on 09-20-16
By: James DiEugenio
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A Farewell to Justice
- Jim Garrison, JFK's Assassination, and the Case That Should Have Changed History
- By: Joan Mellen
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 23 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Working with thousands of previously unreleased documents and drawing on more than one thousand interviews, with many witnesses speaking out for the first time, Joan Mellen revisits the investigation of New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison, the only public official to have indicted, in 1969, a suspect in President John F. Kennedy's murder. Garrison began by exposing the contradictions in the Warren Report, which concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was an unstable pro-Castro Marxist who acted alone in killing Kennedy.
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Powerful
- By Tulsa on 12-12-17
By: Joan Mellen
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Havana Nocturne
- How the Mob Owned Cuba...and Then Lost It to the Revolution
- By: T. J. English
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 13 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Havana Nocturne takes listeners back to Cuba in the years when it was a veritable devil's playground for mob leaders Meyer Lansky and Charles "Lucky" Luciano. Thanks to strong ties with the island's brutal dictator, President Batista, the mob soon owned the biggest luxury hotels and casinos and launched an unprecedented tourist boom. But their dreams collided with those of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and others.
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Not for reactionaries
- By sunsolid on 02-17-09
By: T. J. English
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From Russia with Blood
- The Kremlin's Ruthless Assassination Program and Vladimir Putin's Secret War on the West
- By: Heidi Blake
- Narrated by: Marisa Calin
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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The untold story of how Russia refined the art and science of targeted assassination abroad—while Western spies watched in horror as their governments failed to guard against the threat. Unflinchingly documenting the growing web of death on British and American soil, Heidi Blake bravely exposes the Kremlin's assassination campaign as part of Putin's ruthless pursuit of global dominance—and reveals why Western governments have failed to stop the bloodshed.
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Putin & Polonium; Oligarchs & FSB Assassins; Oh My
- By Michael J Canning on 01-09-20
By: Heidi Blake
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The Spy Who Was Left Behind
- By: Michael Pullara
- Narrated by: Michael Pullara
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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On August 8, 1993, a single bullet to the head killed Freddie Woodruff, the Central Intelligence Agency’s station chief in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Within hours, police had a suspect - a vodka-soaked village bumpkin named Anzor Sharmaidze. A tidy explanation quickly followed: It was a tragic accident. US diplomats hailed Georgia’s swift work. Yet the bullet that killed Woodruff was never found, and key witnesses have since retracted their testimony, saying they were beaten and forced to identify Sharmaidze. But if he didn’t do it, who did?
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great book needs a hires narrator
- By Blake Dahl on 11-17-18
By: Michael Pullara
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The Ghost
- The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton
- By: Jefferson Morley
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Ghost, investigative reporter Jefferson Morley tells Angleton's dramatic story, from his friendship with the poet Ezra Pound through the underground gay milieu of mid-century Washington to the Kennedy assassination to the Watergate scandal. From the agency's MKULTRA mind-control experiments to the wars of the Mideast, Angleton wielded far more power than anyone knew.
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Flawed Superpatriot
- By Bubblehog on 11-23-17
By: Jefferson Morley
What listeners say about A Very Expensive Poison
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- margaret
- 05-26-17
It's probably just me
The book was well-researched and informative. And I really like Nicholas Guy Smith as a narrator. I feel I did get what I expected out of the book, though I think I'll have to listen to it again at some point because I frequently found my mind wandering and I forgot to pay attention for several minutes at a time. Sometimes it was because the author raised an interesting point that caused me to ponder further, but other times I think I just got a little bogged down and ultimately lost in the facts and details. I also had a little trouble remembering who some people were, so in that respect a physical book might've helped me. I think this might be a good one to get the kindle edition as a companion.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Jon
- 02-05-17
Fascinating, well researched.
Reads like a good novel, ties in the whole Putin period. well researched from someone who's lived there for over a decade.
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6 people found this helpful
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- RA
- 02-16-17
Gripping and timely account of Russian intrigue
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
This is a deeply researched book about both the assassination of Alexander Litvenenko and the larger story of Russia's (Putin's) intrigues against the west. In many places it reads like a cold-war spy novel and time after time I had to remind myself that this was an accounting of actual events that have taken place in the last 10 years. The narrator is top-caliber. A chilling must-listen for anyone concerned about the political climate of the United States today!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Kevin Curley
- 10-25-17
Fascinating read - investigation drags a bit
Great read. The structure could have been mixed up a bit. Some of the best parts were towards the end and had little to do directly with the poisoning itself. The book starts like a great Dan Brown fiction but then goes back over the story to prove the facts.
The break up of the story with chapters about Russian oligarch cases in London, lifestyles or the Panama papers give it a historical/biographical feel.
Hard to mix a murder “mystery” with a traditional biography. 4 Stars could be 5 if the chapters arrangements were reworked.
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- Joshua M. Levin
- 04-14-18
Gripping and tragic story
I’d always been fascinated by the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and eagerly purchased this recording to learn about it - not knowing how much more than that I would receive. This story provides a clear portrait of the world menace that is Vladimir Putin: it is a highly listenable account into the maze of corruption and amorality that grips his country, our own, and sadly now much of the world. A great find.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Cascadiapnw
- 12-12-19
Enlightening, Frightening, and Fascinating
Luke Harding was Moscow Bureau Chief for the Guardian for several years until he was kicked out of the country for writing the truth. Glad he's still on the case. I listened to this as I felt it was important to understand more about Putin, given his meddling in American politics, social media, etc. While the book is centered around the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, an alarming and tragic story, it goes beyond, putting this crime into the larger political context of Putin's Russia. I learned a lot and am prepared to provide counterpoint when I hear people say "Putin isn't so bad," which, surprisingly, is something I do hear now and then. I got a lot better understanding about the use of disinformation, false narratives, the intimidation of journalists and opponents, and the murder of dissidents and opponents. I learned more about Ukraine and the invasion of Crimea, the Panama papers, and more.
My only recommendation is to include a download with the names of the people discussed and their roles, as it gets hard to follow the Russian names and all their variation. Also a map would be helpful, as well, for context. That said, an important and good listen or read.
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- Andy
- 02-16-18
Incredible picture of Russia today
This is an extremely well-researched, well-written and thorough account of a case where the Kremlin (and probably Vladmir Putin) directed the assassination in London of a former Russian cop who defected against the FSB.
Beyond telling an unbelievable story of real-life spycraft, it's an excellent overview of Russia as a country today, with a number of battlefronts and a spymaster at its helm.
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- Kate Rendham
- 04-24-17
An excellent narrator
. Luke Harding has presented us with a spell binding story of intrigue, greed and mob style murder.Although the story was in all the newspapers at the time Mr. Harding has brilliantly described in amazing detail how it all came about. I enjoyed every minute of it.
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- Cook
- 01-30-17
Publisher please send copies to all in the senate and congress.
All citizens and government officials have a patriotic duty to read Harding's exposure of international criminal acts and political deceptions used to threaten, weaken and destroy democracies.
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15 people found this helpful
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- jerome m.
- 03-30-18
Better Than Fiction
It would impossible to write a review that would to this book justice. A simply incredible story of Russia, Putin, and Putin's international criminal organization. The US, our allies, and the world would be unwise to take our eyes off Putin. He is an evil individual with pretty much unlimited resources at his disposal.
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2 people found this helpful