
The Illegals
Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West
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Narrated by:
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Paul Thornley
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By:
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Shaun Walker
About this listen
The definitive history of Russia’s most secret spy program, from the earliest days of the Soviet Union to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and a revelatory examination of how that hidden history shaped both Russia and the West.
More than a century ago, the new Bolshevik government began sending Soviet citizens abroad as deep-cover spies, training them to pose as foreign aristocrats, merchants, and students. Over time, this grew into the most ambitious espionage program in history. Many intelligence agencies use undercover operatives, but the KGB was the only one to go to such lengths, spending years training its spies in language and etiquette, and sending them abroad on missions that could last for decades. These spies were known as “illegals.” During the Second World War, illegals were dispatched behind enemy lines to assassinate high-ranking Nazis. Later, in the Cold War, they were sent to assimilate and lie low as sleepers in the West. The greatest among them performed remarkable feats, while many others failed in their missions or cracked under the strain of living a double life.
Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews, as well as archival research in more than a dozen countries, Shaun Walker brings this history to life in a thrilling tour de force that takes us into the heart of the KGB’s most secretive program. A riveting spy drama peopled with richly drawn characters, The Illegals also uncovers a hidden thread in the story of Russia itself. As Putin extols Soviet achievements and the KGB’s espionage prowess, and Moscow continues to infiltrate illegals across the globe, this timely narrative shines new light on the long arc of the Soviet experiment, its messy aftermath, and its influence on our world at large.
©2025 Shaun Walker (P)2025 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“One of the best books on intelligence to be published in the last several years. An excellent and sweeping history of the Russian Illegals program, based on a great deal of original reporting and interviews with former Illegals & their families.”
—Shashank Joshi, editor for The Economist
“Drawing on archival materials and hundreds of interviews, including with former spies, Walker crafts a fascinating account of Soviet and Russian agents planted in various countries under false names and identities.”
—Maria Lipman, Foreign Affairs
“An incredibly moving history of the Soviet Union’s boldest and most secretive spy program. Walker shows how a nation torn between survival and nostalgia invented a form of espionage that was both inspired and fanatical, delving into the deepest levels of espionage where even spies fear to tread.”
—Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields, Executive Producers of The Americans
“Sinister, clandestine, and deadly—this is essential history, and it is happening now. A fascinating study of the Russian use of illegal deep undercover agents against the West.”
—Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin
“This gripping account takes you into a world of shadows and mystery, the long and checkered history of the Kremlin sleeper agents. In the annals of espionage, they were Russia’s great gamble. Shaun Walker has written a spying classic.”
—David E. Hoffman, author of The Billion Dollar Spy
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Story
In 1868, celebrated Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner traveled to Fort Laramie to document the federal government's treaty negotiations with the Lakota and other tribes of the northern Plains. Gardner, known for his iconic portrait of Abraham Lincoln and his visceral pictures of the Confederate dead at Antietam, posed six federal peace commissioners with a young Native girl wrapped in a blanket. The hand-labeled prints carefully name each of the men, but the girl is never identified. .
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Spetsnaz
- A History of the Soviet and Russian Special Forces
- By: Tor Bukkvoll
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In January 1951, Lieutenant Evgeniy Borisov was sent to the headquarters of the Soviet 5th Army in Spassk-Dalnii, a small city in the Russian Far East. Borisov was there on a secret mission. Together with his superior, Major Rusinov, his job was to establish the 91st Special Forces Company. The 91st was to be one of forty-six similar units spread out across the Soviet Union. The new forces were called "spetsnaz"—short for spetsnialnoe naznachenie, which translates to "special purpose."
By: Tor Bukkvoll
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Hitman
- The Untold Story of Canada’s Deadliest Assassin
- By: Julian Sher, Lisa Fitterman
- Narrated by: Jean Brassard
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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For Yves Trudeau, the blood was all business. An assassin for the Hells Angels in the ’70s and ’80s, Trudeau was known as Apache, the Mad Bumper and the Mad Bomber. As a contract killer, he did his job so well that the bikers sometimes lent him out to other organized-crime empires in Montreal, including the east-end French gangs led by the deadly Dubois brothers and the upstart Irish Mafia in the west end. Yves Trudeau remains one of Canada’s most prolific serial killers.
By: Julian Sher, and others
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Russians Among Us
- Sleeper Cells, Ghost Stories, and the Hunt for Putin’s Spies
- By: Gordon Corera
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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With intrigue that rivals the best le Carre novels, Russians Among Us tells the urgent story of Russia’s espionage efforts against the United States and the West from the end of the Cold War to the present.
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Should be required reading for every citizen
- By Amazon Customer on 02-27-20
By: Gordon Corera
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Sorrowful Mysteries
- The Shepherd Children of Fatima and the Fate of the Twentieth Century
- By: Stephen Harrigan
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Sorrowful Mysteries is a detailed and extraordinarily compassionate examination of the appearance of Our Lady of Fátima, an attempt to unravel and put into perspective the lives of the three children, how this life-altering event changed them and the world they knew, and how it intersected with so many of the signal moments of the twentieth century—pandemics, revolutions, world wars, assassinations, and even skyjackings.
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Axe to grind
- By DPM on 04-22-25
By: Stephen Harrigan
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Gaza in Crisis
- Reflections on the US-Israeli War Against the Palestinians
- By: Ilan Pappe, Noam Chomsky, Frank Barat - editor
- Narrated by: Shawn K. Jain
- Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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While numerous books address Israel-Palestine conflict, Gaza in Crisis brings together two renowned thinkers—American activist Noam Chomsky and Israeli historian Ilan Pappé—to examine why this conflict has lasted so long, who can stop it, and how. Israel's Operation Cast Lead, a 2008 military assault on the Gaza Strip, thrust the region to the center of the discussion. With expert knowledge and deep insight, Chomsky and Pappé survey the fallout from Israel's conduct in Gaza and place it in historical context.
By: Ilan Pappe, and others
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Dividing Lines
- How Transportation Infrastructure Reinforces Racial Inequality
- By: Deborah N. Archer
- Narrated by: Diana Blue
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Our nation's transportation system is crumbling. But as acclaimed scholar and ACLU president Deborah Archer warns in Dividing Lines, before we can think about rebuilding and repairing, we must consider the role race has played in transportation infrastructure, from the early twentieth century and into the present day.
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Blowback
- The Untold Story of the FBI and the Oklahoma City Bombing
- By: Margaret Roberts
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Tragedy unfolded on April 19, 1995, when a massive bomb exploded in America's Heartland, killing 168 people, including fifteen children. History says the Oklahoma City bombing was lone wolf terrorism. But haunting fresh evidence points instead to a neo-Nazi plot in which the FBI played a hidden role. The FBI launched the biggest manhunt in its history for two suspected bombers. Yet they never captured the other suspect, known only as John Doe 2, who rode next to McVeigh in the bomb truck. Soon, the FBI canceled the search, saying eyewitnesses who saw John Doe 2 were mistaken.
By: Margaret Roberts
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The Death of Us
- A Novel
- By: Abigail Dean
- Narrated by: Claire Skinner, John Hopkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Together, Edward and Isabel move to London. They are young and in love, occupied by friends, work and fun. But late on a spring evening when they are thirty years old, their home is invaded by a serial killer. In the wake of this violation, each tries to come to terms with a night that changed everything—and their marriage begins to crumble. Twenty-five years later, their tormentor is caught, and Edward and Isabel reunite for his sentencing. Isabel has waited years for the man who nearly ended her life to be brought to justice. Edward has tried to think about anything else.
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Abigail Dean understands human psychology like so many authors try to do but fail all the time!
- By Jennifer on 04-19-25
By: Abigail Dean
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The Bone Clock
- Detective Corstorphine, Book 1
- By: Andrew James Greig
- Narrated by: Angus King
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In the Scottish Highlands where secrets settle like mist in the glens, Detective Inspector James Corstorphine is summoned to a macabre scene–a gamekeeper hanging from an ancient oak, ensnared by an intricate trap of wire and bone. Still grieving his wife's death, Corstorphine finds himself hunting a killer who crafts elaborate deathtraps from human remains–clockwork mechanisms that deliver murder with chilling precision.
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Race Against Terror
- Chasing an Al Qaeda Killer at the Dawn of the Forever War
- By: Jake Tapper
- Narrated by: Jake Tapper
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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June 2011: a man fleeing the Arab Spring on a refugee boat surrenders himself to Italian authorities. He claims that, as a terrorist, he is responsible for the deaths of American soldiers. This unexpected surrender sets off an unlikely chain of events and one of the most significant, but little-known, cases in American history.
By: Jake Tapper
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Poisoning the Well
- How Forever Chemicals Contaminated America
- By: Sharon Udasin, Rachel Frazin
- Narrated by: Rebecca Stern
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the shocking true-life story of how PFAS—a set of toxic chemicals most people have never heard of—poisoned the entire country. Based on original, shoe-leather reporting in four highly contaminated towns and damning documents from the polluters’ own files, Poisoning the Well traces an ugly history of corporate greed and devastation of human lives.
By: Sharon Udasin, and others