
Double Cross
The True Story of the D-Day Spies
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Narrated by:
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John Lee
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By:
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Ben Macintyre
About this listen
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “superb [and] intensely readable” (The Washington Post) untold story of one of the greatest deceptions of World War II and the extraordinary spies who achieved it—from the bestselling author of Prisoners of the Castle
“Not since Ian Fleming and John le Carré has a spy writer so captivated readers.”—The Hollywood Reporter
On June 6, 1944, 150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy and suffered an astonishingly low rate of casualties. A stunning military achievement, it was also a masterpiece of trickery. Operation Fortitude, which protected and enabled the invasion, and the Double Cross system, which specialized in turning German spies into double agents, tricked the Nazis into believing that the Allied attacks would come in Calais and Norway rather than Normandy. It was the most sophisticated and successful deception operation ever carried out, ensuring Allied victory at the most pivotal moment in the war.
This epic event has never before been told from the perspective of the key individuals in the Double Cross system, until now. These include its director (a brilliant, urbane intelligence officer), a colorful assortment of MI5 handlers (as well as their counterparts in Nazi intelligence), and the five spies who formed Double Cross’s nucleus: a dashing Serbian playboy, a Polish fighter-pilot, a bisexual Peruvian party girl, a deeply eccentric Spaniard, and a volatile Frenchwoman. Together they made up one of the oddest and most brilliant military units ever assembled.
With the same depth of research, eye for the absurd, and masterful storytelling that have made Ben Macintyre an international bestseller, Double Cross is a captivating narrative of the spies who wove a web so intricate it ensnared Hitler’s army and carried thousands of D-Day troops across the Channel in safety.
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Critic reviews
2013, Edgar Award, Short-listed
"Ben Macintyre and I work in the same period, and I should be reading him because he is such a scrupulous and insightful writer - a master historian. But, with Double Cross and his other excellent works, I always wind up reading him for pleasure. Double Cross may be his best yet, falling somewhere between top-class entertainment and pure addiction." (Alan Furst, author of A Mission to Paris)
"Ben Macintyre's spellbinding account features an improbable cast of characters who pulled off a counter-intelligence feat that was breathtaking in its audacity. Their deceptions within deceptions - known as the Double Cross - were critical to the success of the D-Day invasion, and continued to mislead the Germans long after Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy. A truly bravura performance, as is Macintyre's fast-paced tale." (Andrew Nagorski, author of Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power)
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Story
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.
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The narrator is incorrectly identified.
- By Greenlake DD on 07-30-14
By: Ben Macintyre
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The Siege
- A Six-Day Hostage Crisis and the Daring Special-Forces Operation That Shocked the World
- By: Ben Macintyre
- Narrated by: Ben Macintyre
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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As the American hostage crisis in Iran boiled into its seventh month in the spring of 1980, six heavily armed gunman barged into the Iranian embassy in London, taking twenty-six hostages. What followed over the next six days was an increasingly tense standoff, one that threatened at any moment to spill into a bloodbath.
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Another brilliant book by MacIntyre
- By ian on 09-29-24
By: Ben Macintyre
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Rogue Heroes
- The History of the SAS, Britain's Secret Special Forces Unit That Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War
- By: Ben Macintyre
- Narrated by: Ben Macintyre
- Length: 13 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Britain's Special Air Service - or SAS - was the brainchild of David Stirling, a young, gadabout aristocrat whose aimlessness in early life belied a remarkable strategic mind. Where most of his colleagues looked at a battlefield map of World War II's African theater and saw a protracted struggle with Rommel's desert forces, Stirling saw an opportunity: Given a small number of elite, well-trained men, he could parachute behind enemy lines and sabotage their airplanes and war matériel.
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Those Who Dared, Won!
- By Matthew on 10-07-16
By: Ben Macintyre
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Prisoners of the Castle
- An Epic Story of Survival and Escape from Colditz, the Nazis' Fortress Prison
- By: Ben Macintyre
- Narrated by: Ben Macintyre
- Length: 13 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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In this gripping narrative, Ben Macintyre tackles one of the most famous prison stories in history and makes it utterly his own. During World War II, the German army used the towering Colditz Castle to hold the most defiant Allied prisoners. For four years, these prisoners of the castle tested its walls and its guards with ingenious escape attempts that would become legend. But as Macintyre shows, the story of Colditz was about much more than escape.
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Another chapter of history brought to life by a master
- By Steve on 09-28-22
By: Ben Macintyre
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The Spy and the Traitor
- The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War
- By: Ben Macintyre
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation's communism as both criminal and philistine. He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union's top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6.
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John Lee is GREAT!
- By David on 09-21-18
By: Ben Macintyre
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Agent Zigzag
- A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal
- By: Ben MacIntyre
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Abridged
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Eddie Chapman was a charming criminal, a con man, and a philanderer. He was also one of the most remarkable double agents Britain has ever produced. Inside the traitor was a man of loyalty; inside the villain was a hero. The problem for Chapman, his spymasters, and his lovers was to know where one persona ended and the other began. In 1941, after training as a German spy in occupied France, Chapman was parachuted into Britain with a revolver, a wireless, and a cyanide pill, with orders from the Abwehr to blow up an airplane factory. Instead, he contacted MI5, the British Secret Service.
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Is it a novel? Is it a newspaper article? No, its
- By Steven on 03-27-11
By: Ben MacIntyre
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The Spy in Moscow Station
- A Counterspy's Hunt for a Deadly Cold War Threat
- By: Eric Haseltine
- Narrated by: Eric Haseltine
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In the late 1970s, the National Security Agency still did not officially exist - those in the know referred to it dryly as the No Such Agency. So why, when NSA engineer Charles Gandy filed for a visa to visit Moscow, did the Russian Foreign Ministry assert with confidence that he was a spy? Outsmarting honey traps and encroaching deep enough into enemy territory to perform complicated technical investigations, Gandy accomplished his mission in Russia but discovered more than State and CIA wanted him to know.
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Dull Dull Dull
- By DVN on 09-02-19
By: Eric Haseltine
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Betrayal in Berlin
- The True Story of the Cold War's Most Audacious Espionage Operation
- By: Steve Vogel
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 17 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Its code name was “Operation Gold”, a wildly audacious CIA plan to construct a clandestine tunnel into East Berlin to tap into critical KGB and Soviet military telecommunication lines. The tunnel, crossing the border between the American and Soviet sectors, would have to be 1,500 feet (the length of the Empire State Building) with state-of-the-art equipment, built and operated literally under the feet of their Cold War adversaries.
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Fascinating Book
- By Toni Bowes on 01-11-20
By: Steve Vogel
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The Billion Dollar Spy
- A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal
- By: David E. Hoffman
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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While getting into his car on the evening of February 16, 1978, the chief of the CIA's Moscow station was handed an envelope by an unknown Russian. Its contents stunned the Americans: details of top-secret Soviet research and development in military technology that was totally unknown to the United States.
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Compelling as historical thriller, character study
- By Mr. Pointy on 08-25-15
By: David E. Hoffman
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The Fourth Man
- The Hunt for a KGB Spy at the Top of the CIA and the Rise of Putin's Russia
- By: Robert Baer
- Narrated by: Robert Baer, Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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In the aftermath of the Cold War, American intelligence caught three high-profile Russian spies: Aldrich Ames, Edward Lee Howard, and Robert Hanssen. However, rumors have long swirled of another mole, one perhaps more damaging than all the others combined. Perhaps the greatest traitor in American history, perhaps a Russian ruse to tear the CIA apart, or perhaps nothing more than a bogeyman, he is often referred to as the Fourth Man.
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A Who Done it without The Who Did it
- By Amazon Customer on 05-25-22
By: Robert Baer
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Into the Lion's Mouth
- The True Story of Dusko Popov: Word War II Spy, Patriot, and the Real-Life Inspiration for James Bond
- By: Larry Loftis
- Narrated by: Eric G. Dove
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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James Bond has nothing on Dusko Popov. A double agent for the Abwehr, MI5 and MI6, and the FBI during World War II, Popov seduced numerous women, spoke five languages, and was a crack shot, all while maintaining his cover as a Yugoslavian diplomat....
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A boring account of exciting events.
- By Amazon Customer on 11-30-18
By: Larry Loftis
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Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
- The Mavericks Who Plotted Hitler's Defeat
- By: Giles Milton
- Narrated by: Giles Milton
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In the spring of 1939, a top-secret organization was founded in London: Its purpose was to plot the destruction of Hitler's war machine through spectacular acts of sabotage. The guerrilla campaign that followed was every bit as extraordinary as the six men who directed it. One of them, Cecil Clarke, was a maverick engineer who had spent the 1930s inventing futuristic caravans. Now his talents were put to more devious use: He built the dirty bomb used to assassinate Hitler's favorite, Reinhard Heydrich.
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Rip-Roarin' Tale of Devoted 'Cads'!
- By Gillian on 02-08-17
By: Giles Milton
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A Quiet Company of Dangerous Men
- The Forgotten British Special Operations Soldiers of World War II
- By: Shannon Monaghan
- Narrated by: George Weightman
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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The untold story of four special operations officers who fought together behind enemy lines across multiple theaters of World War II, and then continued to serve, officially and unofficially, for decades after in the hottest parts of the Cold War.
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Disappointing
- By thecol on 10-16-24
By: Shannon Monaghan
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Circle of Treason
- CIA Traitor Aldrich Ames and the Men He Betrayed
- By: Sandra V. Grimes, Jeanne Vertefeuille
- Narrated by: Janet Metzger
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Circle of Treason is the first account written by CIA agents who were key members of the CIA team that conducted the intense "Ames Mole Hunt." Sandra Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille were two of the five principals of the CIA team tasked with hunting one of their own and were directly responsible for identifying Ames as the mole, leading to his arrest and conviction.
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The hunt for a mole
- By Jean on 01-15-14
By: Sandra V. Grimes, and others
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Colditz
- Het waargebeurde verhaal over het streng beveiligde nazi-fort en de vele spectaculaire ontsnappingen
- By: Ben Macintyre
- Narrated by: Chris Kijne
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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Tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog planden krijgsgevangen gemaakte geallieerde officieren een reeks gedurfde ontsnappingen uit kamp Colditz, een grimmig gotisch kasteel dat in nazi-Duitsland als gevangenis werd gebruikt. Colditz gold destijds als behoorlijk escape-proof: het was een vesting met dikke kasteelmuren, een gesloten binnenplaats, gelegen op een rots, met meer bewakers dan gevangenen en de politie en de bevolking van de dorpen eromheen waren alert op ontsnappers. Kortom: je kon er niet makkelijk weg.
By: Ben Macintyre
What listeners say about Double Cross
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- gobraugh
- 02-03-17
When is the BBC going to do a Mini Series?
What made the experience of listening to Double Cross the most enjoyable?
You cannot make the characters in this book up. Well written, well read, and such an outrageous collection of characters, real people, eccentric people, brave men and women who played an important part in collecting and sending miss-information during WWII. I seriously wonder why this hasn't already been made into a mini-series.
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- Buck
- 01-14-21
The complete spy guide
The complete guide and story of British espionage in WW II. Including the Normandy Invasion.
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- licensedtorock
- 11-03-18
Another Ben Macintyre Triumph
The Story of Double Cross unfolds in incredible detail, bringing to life the spies that helped defeat Germany by ensuring the success of the invasion of Normandy. It is thrilling from start to finish.
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- Daniel L. Mercer
- 05-25-22
Great book marred by awful narration.
It is difficult to focus on the excellent content when it is read by a narrator who plows right through paragraphs without pause and adopts parody accents for the characters. I wanted a book, not a bad performance. What a shame.
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- Nancy Lundgren
- 01-05-23
Double Cross review
It was a very engrossing account of D day spies and their activities. Very enjoyable.
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- Zack
- 06-26-24
The narrator is horrible
It’s amazing how a good book can be ruined by a bad narrator. I wanted to enjoy this story. Had to put the narrator on .5 speed.
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- Michael
- 08-01-15
Great book
Enjoyed the narration, especially as he puts on every American voice with his imitation of john Wayne!
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- Claudia Ellis
- 09-01-12
156,000 men, 4 spies, and one dog.
What made the experience of listening to Double Cross the most enjoyable?
Most folks know the story or the D-day invasion. Probably all but the most studious of us have never heard of the back room intelligence that went into confounding Germany on that
longest of days.
Ben Macintyre's account is fantastic of the events leading up to, during and after the
invasion from small houses in England to MI-5 headquarters. I enjoyed this as much
as I did Operation Mincemeat, another one of Macintyre's books
What other book might you compare Double Cross to and why?
Operation Mincemeat.
What three words best describe John Lee’s performance?
I do enjoyed that it was read by a "reader" with an english accent.
Though it did have some draw backs.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
There was the part at the end of the book where one of the control agents continues
to look for one of the spies long after the war.
Any additional comments?
I really wish that John Lee had just read the book and not tried to improvise
the "voices". Every American sounded like they were from Texas, the Russian accents
sound German sometimes and Polish at other times. Polish accents were a mis-mash.
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- Leo
- 05-16-21
Stunning recount of some amazing people
Absolutely loved this book and learned a lot about some very talented and daring people. what they did made a HUGE difference to Allied Forces in World War II. I'm humbled by what they accomplished for us all.
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- SPC
- 11-13-21
Yet another Macintyre hit
I have read or listened to most of his books, so by now there's not many surprises Ben Macintyre has for me. Double Cross is typically entertaining, detailed and in injected with humor. What does consistently surprise me, is his remarkable ability to deliver tension and suspense over an event everyone already knows the outcome. It builds much slower in this book than some of the others, there is a long, long, long period of setup before the pace and tension accelerate through the climactic pre-invasion period.
In addition, the details behind British Intelligence's spectacular success are astonishing and detailed. If you like Macintyre, or have an interest in intelligence operations before they became the industrialized, personality-less institutions of the Cold War and beyond, you will love this book.
Finally, is there any way to get John Lee to narrate every book at audible? The performance is perfect - never getting in the way, never adding too much - a great match for this book
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