
Dark Arena
The Frenchman Returns
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $17.47
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Victor Bevine
-
By:
-
Jack Beaumont
About this listen
A high-stakes thriller that could be ripped from today’s headlines—from the bestselling author of The Frenchman.
Alec de Payns, espionage operative of the Y Division of the DGSE, France’s famed foreign intelligence service, is tasked with tracking down an agent of influence sending highly classified material against the Kremlin to embassies all over Europe.
A deadly conspiracy is aligning the West against Russia. But who is behind it? And to what end?
The clues lead to a secret meeting of businessmen, terrorists, and mercenaries on a luxury yacht in the Mediterranean, which de Payns must infiltrate. What he discovers sets off a Europe-wide manhunt in a desperate scramble to prevent an international catastrophe.
Former DGSE spy Jack Beaumont’s Dark Arena is another chillingly plausible thriller delivering all the taut plotting, superb action, and authentic spycraft that made The Frenchman a critically acclaimed bestseller.
©2024 Jack Beaumont (P)2024 Blackstone PublishingListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Frenchman: Book 1
- By: Jack Beaumont
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alec de Payns is an undercover operative in the ultra-elusive French Y Division of the DGSE, a foreign intelligence service. Codenamed Aguilar, de Payns is one of the division’s most accomplished agents working to neutralize international threats on a daily basis while simultaneously trying to balance his home life as a husband and father. When a routine mission to infiltrate a dangerous terrorist group unexpectedly goes belly up, Alec is faced with the unthinkable: that he may have been betrayed by someone in his team—and they may be trying to pin the blame on Alec himself.
-
-
Fantastic story all around
- By Christian M. Woodhead on 10-11-24
By: Jack Beaumont
-
A Spy Alone
- The Oxford Spy Ring, Book 1
- By: Charles Beaumont
- Narrated by: David Thorpe
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone knows about the Cambridge Spies from the fifties, identified and broken up after passing national secrets to the Soviets for years. But no spy ring was ever unearthed at Oxford. Because one never existed? Or because it was never found...?
-
-
Amazing
- By Jessica on 09-02-24
By: Charles Beaumont
-
A Foreign Country
- By: Charles Cumming
- Narrated by: Jot Davies
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the vacation of a lifetime in Egypt, an elderly French couple are brutally murdered. Days later, a meticulously planned kidnapping takes place on the streets of Paris. Amelia Levene, the first female Chief of MI6, has disappeared without a trace, six weeks before she is due to take over as the most influential spy in Europe. It is the gravest crisis MI6 has faced in more than a decade. Desperate not only to find her, but to keep her disappearance a secret, Britain’s top intelligence agents turn to one of their own: disgraced MI6 officer Thomas Kell.
-
-
Worth listening
- By zoe catsiff on 01-13-13
By: Charles Cumming
-
The Seventh Floor
- A Novel
- By: David McCloskey
- Narrated by: Sharon Freedman
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Russian arrives in Singapore with a secret to sell. When the Russian is killed and Sam Joseph, the CIA officer dispatched for the meet, goes missing, operational chief Artemis Procter is made a scapegoat for the disaster and run out of the service. Months later, Sam appears at Procter's doorstep with an explosive secret: there is a Russian mole burrowed deep within the highest ranks of the CIA.
-
-
Dreadful
- By Anon Y. Mouse on 10-24-24
By: David McCloskey
-
A Clean Kill
- Garrett Mann, Book 1
- By: Steven Konkoly
- Narrated by: Steve Corona
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Five dismembered bodies are found along the roadside, dumped in the middle of nowhere. This isn’t new to Special Agent Garrett Mann. Head of ARTEMIS, a specialized FBI task force hell-bent on hunting down cartel-related killings in the Southwest, Mann has seen this before. He and his team have been tracking similar kills along thousands of miles of rural roads running north, south, and back again. When the latest slaughter yields a key piece of evidence, Mann thinks he’s found the killer and solved the case. That’s when the nightmare begins.
-
-
Great book
- By Patricia Farr on 11-03-24
By: Steven Konkoly
-
The Last Protector
- Clayton White, Book 1
- By: Simon Gervais
- Narrated by: Jeffrey Kafer
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Former air force combat rescue officer Special Agent Clayton White now works for the Secret Service performing routine escort missions for politicians. These missions may not be quite as exciting as his time in the military, but Clayton’s okay with that. It gives him more time to see his girlfriend, Veronica Hammond—an archaeologist who also happens to be the vice president elect’s daughter. But Clayton’s seemingly manageable new routine takes a startling turn when South African mercenaries target Veronica at an awards gala celebrating her work.
-
-
Language!!!
- By Glenn on 12-28-21
By: Simon Gervais
-
The Frenchman: Book 1
- By: Jack Beaumont
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alec de Payns is an undercover operative in the ultra-elusive French Y Division of the DGSE, a foreign intelligence service. Codenamed Aguilar, de Payns is one of the division’s most accomplished agents working to neutralize international threats on a daily basis while simultaneously trying to balance his home life as a husband and father. When a routine mission to infiltrate a dangerous terrorist group unexpectedly goes belly up, Alec is faced with the unthinkable: that he may have been betrayed by someone in his team—and they may be trying to pin the blame on Alec himself.
-
-
Fantastic story all around
- By Christian M. Woodhead on 10-11-24
By: Jack Beaumont
-
A Spy Alone
- The Oxford Spy Ring, Book 1
- By: Charles Beaumont
- Narrated by: David Thorpe
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone knows about the Cambridge Spies from the fifties, identified and broken up after passing national secrets to the Soviets for years. But no spy ring was ever unearthed at Oxford. Because one never existed? Or because it was never found...?
-
-
Amazing
- By Jessica on 09-02-24
By: Charles Beaumont
-
A Foreign Country
- By: Charles Cumming
- Narrated by: Jot Davies
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the vacation of a lifetime in Egypt, an elderly French couple are brutally murdered. Days later, a meticulously planned kidnapping takes place on the streets of Paris. Amelia Levene, the first female Chief of MI6, has disappeared without a trace, six weeks before she is due to take over as the most influential spy in Europe. It is the gravest crisis MI6 has faced in more than a decade. Desperate not only to find her, but to keep her disappearance a secret, Britain’s top intelligence agents turn to one of their own: disgraced MI6 officer Thomas Kell.
-
-
Worth listening
- By zoe catsiff on 01-13-13
By: Charles Cumming
-
The Seventh Floor
- A Novel
- By: David McCloskey
- Narrated by: Sharon Freedman
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Russian arrives in Singapore with a secret to sell. When the Russian is killed and Sam Joseph, the CIA officer dispatched for the meet, goes missing, operational chief Artemis Procter is made a scapegoat for the disaster and run out of the service. Months later, Sam appears at Procter's doorstep with an explosive secret: there is a Russian mole burrowed deep within the highest ranks of the CIA.
-
-
Dreadful
- By Anon Y. Mouse on 10-24-24
By: David McCloskey
-
A Clean Kill
- Garrett Mann, Book 1
- By: Steven Konkoly
- Narrated by: Steve Corona
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Five dismembered bodies are found along the roadside, dumped in the middle of nowhere. This isn’t new to Special Agent Garrett Mann. Head of ARTEMIS, a specialized FBI task force hell-bent on hunting down cartel-related killings in the Southwest, Mann has seen this before. He and his team have been tracking similar kills along thousands of miles of rural roads running north, south, and back again. When the latest slaughter yields a key piece of evidence, Mann thinks he’s found the killer and solved the case. That’s when the nightmare begins.
-
-
Great book
- By Patricia Farr on 11-03-24
By: Steven Konkoly
-
The Last Protector
- Clayton White, Book 1
- By: Simon Gervais
- Narrated by: Jeffrey Kafer
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Former air force combat rescue officer Special Agent Clayton White now works for the Secret Service performing routine escort missions for politicians. These missions may not be quite as exciting as his time in the military, but Clayton’s okay with that. It gives him more time to see his girlfriend, Veronica Hammond—an archaeologist who also happens to be the vice president elect’s daughter. But Clayton’s seemingly manageable new routine takes a startling turn when South African mercenaries target Veronica at an awards gala celebrating her work.
-
-
Language!!!
- By Glenn on 12-28-21
By: Simon Gervais
-
The Enemies of My Country
- The Shadow Strike Series, Book 1
- By: Jason Kasper
- Narrated by: Corey M. Snow
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David Rivers is an elite-level assassin. He’s an expert in the art of violence. Honing his skill first as a Ranger, then as a mercenary, and now as a CIA contractor conducting covert action around the world. But in his secluded mountain home in Virginia, David Rivers lives a double life. There, Rivers is known as a caring husband to his new wife and the doting father to his young daughter. Soft targets to his enemies. Half a world away, on a mission to assassinate a foreign operative, Rivers uncovers his worst fear.
-
-
I wanted to like it...
- By Alex on 06-01-21
By: Jason Kasper
-
Funeral in Berlin
- Harry Palmer, Book 3
- By: Len Deighton
- Narrated by: James Lailey
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1963, Berlin is dark and dangerous. Len Deighton's skilled, jaded, anonymous hero of The IPCRESS File is now set to arrange the defection—and fake the death—of a leading Soviet scientist. "A ferociously cool fable" (New York Times) and one of the first novels written after the construction of the Berlin Wall, Funeral in Berlin revels in the fraught, chilling atmosphere of a divided city.
-
-
I love the vagueness
- By Sagie on 05-26-24
By: Len Deighton
-
The Elias Network
- Caspian Anderson, Book 1
- By: Simon Gervais
- Narrated by: Graham Halstead
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Caspian Anderson is a translator for the United Nations—or so he’s led everyone to believe. No one suspects that mild-mannered Caspian, with his baggy clothes and sensible car, is actually an elite assassin for the US government. And that’s just how he wants it. For ten years, Caspian has worked under the code name Elias for Onyx, a black program deep within the Department of Homeland Security. His latest mission takes him to Switzerland to kill a target tied to a human trafficking ring. There, Caspian stumbles onto a web of conspiracies involving high-level political figures.
-
-
Good Spy Thriller
- By N. Male on 12-07-24
By: Simon Gervais
-
Agent in Berlin
- The Wolf Pack Spies 1
- By: Alex Gerlis
- Narrated by: Duncan Galloway
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To live among wolves, first you must become one… An unmissable new spy thriller from best-selling master of the genre, Alex Gerlis. War is coming to Europe. British spymaster Barnaby Allen begins recruiting a network of agents in Germany. With diplomatic relations quickly unravelling, this pack of spies soon comes into their own: the horse-loving German at home in Berlin's underground; the young American sports journalist; the mysterious Luftwaffe officer; the Japanese diplomat and the most unlikely one of all... the SS officer's wife.
-
-
I Love WWII Spy Novels…But
- By Gary L. Richardson on 03-29-22
By: Alex Gerlis
-
My Name Is Nobody
- By: Matthew Richardson
- Narrated by: Colin Mace
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When disgraced spy Solomon Vine's friend and rival Gabriel Wilde vanishes without trace, it's only Vine who might be able to discover what has happened to him. A single missing file holds the key. That, too, is gone. But its contents, Vine is told, are incendiary. There were few Wilde could trust. And being one of them appears to have fatal consequences. But as Vine's off-the-books investigation begins to reveal the shocking truth, he realizes there's much more at stake than one man's life.
-
-
slow and boring
- By Alison A. on 09-01-17
-
The Power of the Dog
- By: Don Winslow
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 20 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This explosive novel of the drug trade takes you deep inside a world riddled with corruption, betrayal, and bloody revenge. From the streets of New York City to Mexico City and Tijuana to the jungles of Central America, this is the war on drugs like you've never seen it.
-
-
Gripping Drama
- By Deborah on 01-06-11
By: Don Winslow
-
Box 88
- Lachlan Kite Series, Book 1
- By: Charles Cumming
- Narrated by: Charlie Ansen
- Length: 15 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lachlan Kite is a member of BOX 88, an elite transatlantic black-ops outfit so covert that not even MI6 and the CIA are certain of its existence - but even the best spy can't anticipate every potential threat in a world where dangerous actors lurk around every corner. At the funeral of his childhood best friend, Lachlan falls into a trap that drops him into the hands of a potentially deadly interrogation, with his pregnant wife, also abducted, being held as collateral for the information he's sworn on his own life to protect.
-
-
Excellent
- By enriver on 01-20-22
By: Charles Cumming
-
A Reluctant Spy
- By: David Goodman
- Narrated by: Norman Bowman
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jamie Tulloch is a successful exec at a top tech company, a long way from the tough upbringing that drove him to rise so far and so quickly. But he has a secret...since the age of 23, he's had a helping hand from the Legend Programme, a secret intelligence effort to prepare impenetrable backstories for undercover agents. Real people, living real lives, willing to hand over their identities for a few weeks in return for a helping hand with plum jobs, influence and access.
-
-
Good story - narration was a challenge
- By Rob on 06-06-25
By: David Goodman
-
Matterhorn
- Mac Dekker, Book 1
- By: Christopher Reich
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Robbie Steinhardt lives a peaceful life. A fixture of his small alpine village, he tends cattle, minds his own business, and doesn’t dwell on his former life and the family and lover he left behind—back when he was Mac Dekker, CIA. But when he learns his son Will died following in his footsteps, he needs answers. What mission took Will up into the alpine heights, and why is Ilya Ivashka on the same trail? Ilya—his close friend, his rival in love. Ilya, who framed Mac for treason and sent him into hiding.
-
-
Very Enjoyable Romp Through Switzerland
- By Bucko on 07-08-24
-
Sandstorm
- Charlie Cooper Thriller, Book 1
- By: Mark Dawson
- Narrated by: David Thorpe
- Length: 3 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the city of Cairo, a sandstorm is coming. Group Fifteen operative and ex-MI6 officer Charlie Cooper is working undercover as a political negotiator. Attending a conference surrounded by diplomats, businessmen, and lobbyists, nobody would suspect what he really does for a living. Also in their midst is Aisha, a Saudi activist whose protests against human rights abuses have made her an enemy of her country's regime. It isn't just Cooper visiting Cairo under false pretenses. A hit squad has been sent to eliminate Aisha and their reputation precedes them.
-
-
Very short story introducing Charlie Cooper
- By Kristine on 09-01-23
By: Mark Dawson
-
The Insider
- By: Matthew Richardson
- Narrated by: Sean Barrett
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Russian defector is found brutally murdered in a London hotel. Only four people knew he had turned - the four most important and powerful figures in Whitehall. There's only one conclusion - a mole has infiltrated the highest levels of the nation's security. Operating in secret from within Westminster's darkest corners, former spy Solomon Vine must uncover the traitor. Because Britain's future hangs in the balance. And with it the fate of the whole world.
-
-
A TRUELY EXCEPTIONAL YOUNG AUTHOR
- By Brian D. Baird on 12-02-21
-
Rogue Operator
- Special Agent Dylan Kane Thrillers Series, Book 1
- By: J. Robert Kennedy
- Narrated by: Adam Barr
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three top secret research scientists are presumed dead in a boating accident, but the kidnapping of their families the same day raises questions the FBI and local police can't answer, leaving them waiting for a ransom demand that will never come. Central Intelligence Agency analyst Chris Leroux stumbles upon the story, and finds a phone conversation that was never supposed to happen. When he reports it to his boss, the national clandestine services chief, he is uncharacteristically reprimanded for conducting an unauthorized investigation and told to leave it to the FBI.
-
-
It was a very clean story 
- By Timothy on 03-20-24
Thrilling and compelling story!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
My only hesitation on 5 stars all around is because I feel the performance could have been better. He wasn’t bad. It’s definitely worth the listen but, I definitely don’t think it gave the story what it could be.
Wow..Just…wow
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Jack Beaumont- wow!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Engaging book read by a medicated depressive
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A masterful plot that is hard to put down
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
As far as the story goes..it was just meh. I mean, it was like "a year in the life of a spy", but in too many seperated snippets. There were several points that I said to myself "wait, what just happened?"
I would have loved a shorter plot line with a lot more fleashing out. A lot more detail on just one mission would have been great! Like I said in the begining, its lovely to listen to in the backround, but I just couldn't concentrate. Maybe it was just a "me thing".
I kept falling asleep🤣
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I would read another
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.