
Istanbul Passage
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Jefferson Mays
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By:
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Joseph Kanon
About this listen
From the acclaimed, best-selling author of Stardust, The Good German, and Los Alamos - a gripping tale of an American undercover agent in 1945 Istanbul who descends into the murky cat-and-mouse world of compromise and betrayal that will come to define the entire postwar era.
A neutral capital straddling Europe and Asia, Istanbul has spent the war as a magnet for refugees and spies. Even American businessman Leon Bauer has been drawn into this shadow world, doing undercover odd jobs and courier runs for the Allied war effort. Now, as the espionage community begins to pack up and an apprehensive city prepares for the grim realities of postwar life, he is given one more assignment, a routine job that goes fatally wrong, plunging him into a tangle of intrigue and moral confusion.
Played out against the bazaars and mosques and faded mansions of this knowing, ancient Ottoman city, Leon's attempt to save one life leads to a desperate manhunt and a maze of shifting loyalties that threatens his own. How do you do the right thing when there are only bad choices to make? Istanbul Passage is the story of a man swept up in the aftermath of war, an unexpected love affair, and a city as deceptive as the calm surface waters of the Bosphorus that divides it.
Rich with atmosphere and period detail, Joseph Kanon's latest novel flawlessly blends fact and fiction into a haunting thriller about the dawn of the Cold War, once again proving why Kanon has been hailed as the "heir apparent to Graham Greene" (The Boston Globe).
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Story
It is the spring of 1945, and in a dusty, remote community, the world’s most brilliant minds have come together in secret. Their mission: to split an atom and end a war. But among those who have come to Robert Oppenheimer’s "enchanted campus" of foreign-born scientists, baffled guards, and restless wives is a simple man in search of a killer. Michael Connolly has been sent to the middle of nowhere to investigate the murder of a security officer on the Manhattan Project.
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Terrible sound quality
- By JOSEPH on 12-14-12
By: Joseph Kanon
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Under Occupation
- A Novel
- By: Alan Furst
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
In this thrilling historical spy novel from New York Times best-selling author Alan Furst, two heroic resistance fighters smuggle valuable information to occupied Paris to turn the tide of the World War II and defeat Nazi Germany.
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Awful
- By Hernan Navarro on 01-21-20
By: Alan Furst
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The Prodigal Spy
- A Novel
- By: Joseph Kanon
- Narrated by: Boyd Gaines
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
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Story
The Prodigal Spy is a story of fathers and sons and the loyalties that transcend borders, and of a young man's search for the truth buried in his own past, when a national drama was made personal and history itself became a crime story.
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Great story, poor quality audio
- By K. on 02-08-12
By: Joseph Kanon
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The Winter Agent
- By: Gareth Rubin
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
February, 1944. A bitter winter grips occupied France, where Marc Reece leads a circuit of British agents risking their lives in order to sabotage the German war effort from within. But Reece has a second mission, secret even from his fellow agents - including Charlotte, the woman with whom he has ill-advisedly fallen in love. He must secure a document identifying a German spy at the heart of British intelligence. The fate of the Allied forces on D-Day is in his hands.
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Fantastic
- By Will Cunningham on 11-04-21
By: Gareth Rubin
A very somber experience.
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Gripping and Surprising Spy Story
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When thinking about what I wanted to say in this review, Elizabeth Barrett Browning came to mind: "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways."
Here are three:
1. Attention to detail
Like an painter from the Realist School, Joseph Kanon's writing is detailed, accurate, and objective. His greatness is in the details.
This isn't a history lesson (like, say, Michener would write); rather, the book is a work of art. The detail of the setting (Istanbul just after the conclusion of the second World War) serves as the vase for the bouquet of flowers that is the story.
(Humorous aside: As I was listening to this book, I thought to myself that Istanbul Passage had the feel of another book I loved -- Los Alamos. I couldn't recall who wrote Los Alamos, so I went in search of the author. Surprise! Los Alamos is by Joseph Kanon.)
2. Story
Every once in a while, I come across a newspaper article about someone who, on a glorious day, sets out on a creek or river in a raft or kayak expecting to float along aimlessly to some unspecified destination. Along the way, invisible currents present themselves and turn the innocent outing into a situation of great peril.
Here's an example from one such newspaper article: "Before I realized it, the water was pushing me to the right, and I hear my dad yelling me to the left,” Amber recalled, “and it’s like, ‘I can’t. It’s too late at this point.’ ”
Amber could have been describing this book. She has perfectly summed up the story line of Istanbul Passage. What begins as a gentle current of self-inflicted events gradually overtakes American expatriate Leon Bauer. He thinks he's in control until, too late, he realizes that he's not.
I challenge you to find better story telling.
3. Reader
A great reader creates atmosphere and brings characters to life. Jefferson Mays gets an A+ in this regard. Istanbul Passage is a terrific listen.
Swept Away
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I can’t wait to delve into this authors work further.
Excellent
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A Spy Story The Keeps Your Interest
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Aged, cigarette abused, male voice for narrator.
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Don't miss the boat.
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Would you try another book from Joseph Kanon and/or Jefferson Mays?
probably notWould you recommend Istanbul Passage to your friends? Why or why not?
too hard too follow in an audio book, maybe it would've been better as a readWhat didn’t you like about Jefferson Mays’s performance?
Too monotone.Was Istanbul Passage worth the listening time?
It was last month's book club selection, or I wouldn't have finished it.Was like a homework assignment
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However, this is no travelogue its a spy story set in immediately post war Turkey. Spy novels are not normally my thing but I needed something lightish to listen to on holiday and in particular a long flight. This met those needs perfectly. Its not literature and doesn't pretend to be but it is a good story and well told. There were times when the action was as slow as treacle but that was just building up the suspense for there were times the action moved so fast I was out of breath!
It was a good holiday listen and Jefferson Mays did a good job of narrating and getting his tongue round some of those Turkish names.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Bazaar Trader
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The balance of the books deals with Leon trying to discover who Tommy really worked for, and trying to see that the Romanian is delivered to the American. Unfortunately this exciting sounding plot is revealed not by action, but by long and often boring conversation with a large number of people Leon meets at parties, at the Embassy, etc.
Combined with this story are the flashbacks about Leon’s life and marriage in pre-war Berlin to Anna, who as the result of traumatic accident now lies in a coma in a nursing home. Leon faithfully goes to see here and hold long conversations with here about what he is doing and what his plans are.
For a little spice, he has an affair with Kay Bishop, an embassy wife, whose husband is murdered. Suspicion falls on Leon. Again most of this is revealed through long conversation. I skipped a lot of the part about his relationship with Kay – he spent one night with here in a hotel room and the conversations they had goes on for several hours on the audio book. I skipped it. There is just too much tedious conversation like that to make the book an entertaining read.
Although it has an exciting plot on paper, the author’s method of development may have a limited appeal. The author know Turkey and Istanbul very well, but even when he goes to a location we get a description of the location not in a word picture, bur rather with a long drawn-out conversation or worse monologues with flash backs about going to the location with Anna.
If you can tolerate a book whose plot development is done mostly with long conversations with a variety of characters and very little action, you may like this book.. But the author is no Eric Ambler or Alan Furst.
Boring and Tedious
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