
The Dictator’s Muse
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
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $18.88
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Rachel Bavidge
-
By:
-
Nigel Farndale
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
From the best-selling author of The Blasphemer, shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and a Richard & Judy Bookclub Pick
It is the early 1930s, and Europe is holding its breath. As Hitler's grip on power tightens, preparations are being made for the Berlin Olympics.
Leni Riefenstahl is the pioneering, sexually liberated star film-maker of the Third Reich. She has been chosen by Hitler to capture the Olympics on celluloid but is about to find that even his closest friends have much to fear. Kim Newlands is the English athlete 'sponsored' by the Blackshirts and devoted to his mercurial, socialite girlfriend, Connie. He is driven by a desire to win an Olympic gold, but to do that he must first pretend to be someone he is not. Alun Pryce is the Welsh communist sent to infiltrate the Blackshirts. When he befriends Kim and Connie, his belief that the end justifies the means will be tested to the core.
Through her camera lens and memoirs, Leni is able to manipulate the truth about what happens when their fates collide at the Olympics. But while some scenes from her life end up on the cutting-room floor, this does not mean they are lost forever....
©2021 Nigel Farndale (P)2021 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Secret Keeper
- By: Kate Morton
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England, 1959: Laurel Nicolson is 16 years old, dreaming alone in her childhood tree house during a family celebration at their home, Green Acres Farm. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and then observes her mother, Dorothy, speaking to him. And then she witnesses a crime.
-
-
Kate Morton (and Caroline Lee) does it again!
- By Maria on 10-20-12
By: Kate Morton
-
The Girl You Left Behind
- By: Jojo Moyes
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett, Penny Rawlins
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
France, 1916: Artist Edouard Lefevre leaves his young wife, Sophie, to fight at the front. When their small town falls to the Germans in the midst of World War I, Edouard’s portrait of Sophie draws the eye of the new Kommandant. As the officer’s dangerous obsession deepens, Sophie will risk everything - her family, her reputation, and her life - to see her husband again.
-
-
Exquisite Portrait of Sophie and Liz
- By FanB14 on 09-03-13
By: Jojo Moyes
-
The Last Letter from Your Lover
- A Novel
- By: Jojo Moyes
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sophisticated, pause-resisting double love story spanning 40 years-an unforgettable Brief Encounter for our times. It is 1960. When Jennifer Stirling wakes up in the hospital, she can remember nothing-not the tragic car accident that put her there, not her husband, not even who she is. She feels like a stranger in her own life until she stumbles upon an impassioned letter, signed simply "B", asking her to leave her husband. Years later, in 2003, a journalist named Ellie discovers the same enigmatic letter in a forgotten file in her newspaper's archives.
-
-
What's so Great About Jennifer?
- By FanB14 on 03-04-14
By: Jojo Moyes
-
Maisie Dobbs
- Maisie Dobbs, Book 1
- By: Jacqueline Winspear
- Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maisie Dobbs got her start as a maid in an aristocratic London household when she was thirteen. Her employer, suffragette Lady Rowan Compton, soon became her patron, taking the remarkably bright youngster under her wing. Lady Rowan’s friend, Maurice Blanche, often retained as an investigator by the European elite, recognized Maisie’s intuitive gifts. The outbreak of war changed everything. Ten years after the Armistice, in the spring of 1929, Maisie sets out on her own as a private investigator, one who has learned that coincidences are meaningful, and truth elusive.
-
-
All ‘round tip top
- By nancy M on 01-10-23
-
Mr. Churchill's Secretary
- A Maggie Hope Mystery
- By: Susan Elia MacNeal
- Narrated by: Donada Peters
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this daring debut, Susan Elia MacNeal blends meticulous research on the era, psychological insight into Winston Churchill, and the creation of a riveting main character, Maggie Hope, into a spectacularly crafted novel.
-
-
Lovely
- By Katherine on 10-22-12
-
The Eyre Affair
- A Thursday Next Novel
- By: Jasper Fforde
- Narrated by: Susan Duerden
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Jasper Fforde's Great Britain, circa 1985, time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection.
-
-
A Worthy Read
- By chicagoalum on 01-21-10
By: Jasper Fforde
-
The Secret Keeper
- By: Kate Morton
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England, 1959: Laurel Nicolson is 16 years old, dreaming alone in her childhood tree house during a family celebration at their home, Green Acres Farm. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and then observes her mother, Dorothy, speaking to him. And then she witnesses a crime.
-
-
Kate Morton (and Caroline Lee) does it again!
- By Maria on 10-20-12
By: Kate Morton
-
The Girl You Left Behind
- By: Jojo Moyes
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett, Penny Rawlins
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
France, 1916: Artist Edouard Lefevre leaves his young wife, Sophie, to fight at the front. When their small town falls to the Germans in the midst of World War I, Edouard’s portrait of Sophie draws the eye of the new Kommandant. As the officer’s dangerous obsession deepens, Sophie will risk everything - her family, her reputation, and her life - to see her husband again.
-
-
Exquisite Portrait of Sophie and Liz
- By FanB14 on 09-03-13
By: Jojo Moyes
-
The Last Letter from Your Lover
- A Novel
- By: Jojo Moyes
- Narrated by: Susan Lyons
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sophisticated, pause-resisting double love story spanning 40 years-an unforgettable Brief Encounter for our times. It is 1960. When Jennifer Stirling wakes up in the hospital, she can remember nothing-not the tragic car accident that put her there, not her husband, not even who she is. She feels like a stranger in her own life until she stumbles upon an impassioned letter, signed simply "B", asking her to leave her husband. Years later, in 2003, a journalist named Ellie discovers the same enigmatic letter in a forgotten file in her newspaper's archives.
-
-
What's so Great About Jennifer?
- By FanB14 on 03-04-14
By: Jojo Moyes
-
Maisie Dobbs
- Maisie Dobbs, Book 1
- By: Jacqueline Winspear
- Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Maisie Dobbs got her start as a maid in an aristocratic London household when she was thirteen. Her employer, suffragette Lady Rowan Compton, soon became her patron, taking the remarkably bright youngster under her wing. Lady Rowan’s friend, Maurice Blanche, often retained as an investigator by the European elite, recognized Maisie’s intuitive gifts. The outbreak of war changed everything. Ten years after the Armistice, in the spring of 1929, Maisie sets out on her own as a private investigator, one who has learned that coincidences are meaningful, and truth elusive.
-
-
All ‘round tip top
- By nancy M on 01-10-23
-
Mr. Churchill's Secretary
- A Maggie Hope Mystery
- By: Susan Elia MacNeal
- Narrated by: Donada Peters
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this daring debut, Susan Elia MacNeal blends meticulous research on the era, psychological insight into Winston Churchill, and the creation of a riveting main character, Maggie Hope, into a spectacularly crafted novel.
-
-
Lovely
- By Katherine on 10-22-12
-
The Eyre Affair
- A Thursday Next Novel
- By: Jasper Fforde
- Narrated by: Susan Duerden
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Jasper Fforde's Great Britain, circa 1985, time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection.
-
-
A Worthy Read
- By chicagoalum on 01-21-10
By: Jasper Fforde
-
The Glass Ocean
- A Novel
- By: Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, Karen White
- Narrated by: Vanessa Johansson, Saskia Maarleveld, Brittany Pressley
- Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is a captivating historical mystery, infused with romance, that links the lives of three women across a century - two deep in the past, one in the present - to the doomed passenger liner, RMS Lusitania.... Her finances are in dire straits, and best-selling author Sarah Blake is struggling to find a big idea for her next book. Desperate, she breaks the one promise she made to her mother and opens an old chest that belonged to her great-grandfather, who died when the RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat in 1915. What she discovers there could change history.
-
-
I enjoyed this book, at least most of it.
- By Kevin Greaser on 10-02-18
By: Beatriz Williams, and others
-
Munich
- A Novel
- By: Robert Harris
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hugh Legat is a rising star of the British diplomatic service, serving at 10 Downing Street as a private secretary to the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. Paul von Hartmann is on the staff of the German Foreign Office - and secretly a member of the anti-Hitler resistance. The two men were friends at Oxford in the 1920s, but have not been in contact since. Now, when Hugh flies with Chamberlain from London to Munich, and Hartmann travels on Hitler's train overnight from Berlin, their paths are set on a disastrous collision course.
-
-
Gripping
- By Jean on 01-29-18
By: Robert Harris
-
The Forgotten Village
- By: Lorna Cook
- Narrated by: Beth Eyre
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1943: the world is at war, and the villagers of Tyneham are being asked to make one more sacrifice: to give their homes over to the British army. But on the eve of their departure, a terrible act will cause three of them to disappear forever. 2018: Melissa had hoped a break on the coast of Dorset would rekindle her stagnant relationship, but despite the idyllic scenery, it’s pushing her and Liam to the brink.
-
-
Ridiculous
- By christina on 06-06-23
By: Lorna Cook
-
Red Joan
- By: Jennie Rooney
- Narrated by: Jenny Sterlin
- Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Talented and impressionable, Cambridge undergraduate Joan Stanley befriends the worldly Sonya, whose daring history is at odds with Joan's provincial upbringing. Joan also feels a growing attraction toward Leo, Sonya's mysterious and charismatic cousin. Sonya and Leo, known communist sympathizers with ties to Russia and Germany, interpret wartime loyalty in ways Joan can only begin to fathom. As nations throughout the continent fall to fascism, Joan is enlisted into an urgent project that will change the course of the war - and the world - forever. Decades later, MI5 agents appear at her doorstep....
-
-
Spellbinding.
- By Mary on 04-17-19
By: Jennie Rooney
-
Waiting for Sunrise
- A Novel
- By: William Boyd
- Narrated by: Robert Ian MacKenzie
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lysander Rief, a young English actor in town seeking psychotherapy for a troubling ailment of a sexual nature, becomes caught up in a feverish affair with a beautiful, enigmatic woman. When she goes to the police to press charges of rape, however, he is stunned, and his few months of passion come to an abrupt end. Only a carefully plotted escape - with the help of two mysterious British diplomats - saves him from trial. But the frenzied getaway sets off a chain of events that steadily dismantles Lysander's life as he knows it.
-
-
No need to wait.
- By Thomas D Kennedy on 07-25-12
By: William Boyd
-
The Aftermath
- By: Rhidian Brook
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1946, post-World War II, Hamburg: While thousands wander the rubble, lost and homeless, Colonel Lewis Morgan, charged with overseeing the rebuilding of this devastated city and the denazification of its defeated people, is stationed in a grand house on the River Elbe. He is awaiting the arrival of his wife, Rachael - still grieving for their eldest son - and their only surviving son, Edmund. But rather than force the owners of the house, a German widower and his rebellious daughter, out onto the streets, Lewis insists that the two families live together. In this charged atmosphere, both parents and children will be forced to confront their true selves....
-
-
Post WW II Occupied Germany
- By Sara on 03-21-16
By: Rhidian Brook
-
The Light We Left Behind
- By: Tessa Harris
- Narrated by: Tor Leijten
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
England: 1944. When psychologist Maddie Gresham is sent a mysterious message telling her to report to Trent Park mansion, she wonders how she will be helping the war effort from a stately home. Having signed the official secrets act, she soon finds captured Nazi generals are being detained at the house. Bugged with listening devices in every room, it’s up to Maddie to gain the Nazis’ trust and coax them into giving up information. When Max Weitzler, a Jewish refugee, also arrives at Trent Park with the same mission, Maddie finds herself trapped in a dangerous game of chess.
-
-
Great, easy read
- By Rachel B on 11-15-24
By: Tessa Harris
-
In the Blood
- Jefferson Tayte Genealogical Mystery, Book 1
- By: Steve Robinson
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two hundred years ago a loyalist family fled to England to escape the American War of Independence and seemingly vanished into thin air. American genealogist Jefferson Tayte is hired to find out what happened, but it soon becomes apparent that a calculated killer is out to stop him.
-
-
New Twist on old fashion mystery
- By Cmd2222 on 04-25-15
By: Steve Robinson
-
Moskva
- By: Jack Grimwood
- Narrated by: Daniel Weyman
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Red Square, 1985. The naked body of a young man is left outside the walls of the Kremlin: frozen solid - like marble to the touch - and missing the little finger from his right hand. A week later Alex Marston, the headstrong 15-year-old daughter of the British ambassador, disappears. Army intelligence officer Tom Fox, posted to Moscow to keep him from telling the truth to a government committee, is asked to help find her. It's a shot at redemption. But Russia is reluctant to give up the worst of her secrets.
By: Jack Grimwood
-
Wild Lavender
- By: Belinda Alexandra
- Narrated by: Kate Hood
- Length: 20 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Simone Fleurier is wrenched from her home on a Provencal lavender farm at the age of 14 after the accidental death of her father. Forced to become a maid at the boarding house of her Aunt Augustine in Marseilles, Simone's life is hard and impoverished. But one of her aunt's boarders, the beautiful Camille Casal, a star at the local music hall, gives Simone a dream: that one day she too will be a famous singer and dancer.
-
-
An Extrodinary Story
- By Wade on 08-16-08
-
The Innocent
- By: Ian McEwan
- Narrated by: John Franklyn-Robbins
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
War-weary Berlin has much to offer Leonard Markham, a young, naive postal engineer: first the arts of sophisticated intrigue, then the delights of sexual pleasure. But Leonard's new knowledge carries a heavy price, dragging him and the listener into a new type of story that is exhaustively suspenseful and utterly irresistible.
-
-
A little gem
- By Geoffrey on 08-19-04
By: Ian McEwan
-
The Lost Song of Paris
- By: Sarah Steele
- Narrated by: Samara MacLaren
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1997. Amy Novak has lost the two great loves in her life: her husband, Michael, and her first love, music. With the first anniversary of Michael's death approaching, Amy buries herself in her job as an archivist. And when a newly declassified file lands on her desk, she is astonished to uncover proof that Agent 'Colette' existed—a name spoken only in whispers; an identity so secret that it has never been verified.
-
-
Gripping!
- By Megan on 06-04-23
By: Sarah Steele