
The Russian Doll
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 $21.80
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Heather Long
-
By:
-
Marina Palmer
About this listen
The Firm meets McMafia in Marina Palmer's thrilling and exciting novel, which opens the door on the Russian high life in London and corruption at the heart of British politics, reaching all the way into the Secret Services.
Packed with twists, intrigue, betrayal, romance and suspense, The Russian Doll constantly wrong-foots the listeners and delivers a perfect narrative, right to the last word.
How much did she just say the salary was?
When Ruth Miller returns a dropped scarf to Elena Shilkov, she is whisked from a dreary shared house to a world of unimagined luxury.
The super-rich Russian wants a new personal assistant and won't take no for an answer.
Ruth gets accommodation, a credit card and a complete wardrobe makeover.
And she's good at the job; distributing gifts, attending galas, dealing with the high-society movers and shakers fighting for Elena's attention.
Then the sinister truth begins to reveal itself, that nothing is quite what it seems in Elena's dangerous, deceptive world.
Ruth should get away.
But it's already too late.
©2021 Marina Palmer (P)2021 Hodder & Stoughton LimitedListeners also enjoyed...
-
Damascus Station
- A Novel
- By: David McCloskey
- Narrated by: Andrew B. Wehrlen
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
CIA Case Officer Sam Joseph is dispatched to Paris to recruit Syrian Palace official Mariam Haddad. The two fall into a forbidden relationship, which supercharges Haddad's recruitment and creates unspeakable danger when they enter Damascus to find the man responsible for the disappearance of an American spy. But the cat-and-mouse chase for the killer soon leads to a trail of high-profile assassinations and the discovery of a dark secret at the heart of the Syrian regime.
-
-
The Performance !
- By Allenby on 01-02-22
By: David McCloskey
-
The Secret Hours
- By: Mick Herron
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two years ago, a hostile Prime Minister launched the Monochrome inquiry, investigating "historical over-reaching" by the British Secret Service “to investigate historical over-reaching.” Monochrome’s mission was to ferret out any hint of misconduct by any MI5 officer—and allowed Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle, the two civil servants seconded to the project, unfettered access to any and all confidential information in the Service archives in order to do so. But MI5’s formidable First Desk did not become Britain’s top spy by accident, and she has successfully thwarted the inquiry at every turn.
-
-
Just about perfect
- By June Lapidow on 09-28-23
By: Mick Herron
-
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
-
Yesterday's Spy
- By: Tom Bradby
- Narrated by: George Weightman
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, 1953. Harry Towers is a recently retired, and even more recently widowed, British intelligence officer. After a night spent drinking away his sorrows, he is awakened by a phone call with chilling news. His estranged son Sean has gone missing in Tehran after writing a damning article about government officials in the opium trade. Harry springs to action, eager to reunite with his son. When he arrives in Tehran, a city roiling on the brink of a historic coup, Harry joins forces with Sean’s Iranian girlfriend Shahnaz—seemingly the only other person interested in finding him.
-
-
Yesterday's spy comes to the fore
- By Reed Ramlow on 08-26-23
By: Tom Bradby
-
Standing by the Wall
- The Collected Slough House Novellas
- By: Mick Herron
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Espionage. Blackmail. Revenge. Cunning. Slapstick. State secrets dating back to the fall of the Berlin Wall. All this and more in a tight package of five novellas by Mick Herron, CWA Gold Dagger-winning author of Slow Horses.
-
-
More Please
- By Katy on 01-27-23
By: Mick Herron
-
Red Widow
- By: Alma Katsu
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lyndsey was once a top handler in the Moscow Field Station, where she was known as the "human lie detector" and praised for recruiting some of the most senior Russian officials. But now, three Russian assets have been exposed - including one of her own - and the CIA is convinced there's a mole in the department. With years of work in question and lives on the line, Lyndsey is thrown back into life at the agency, this time tracing the steps of those closest to her.
-
-
Somewhat disappointed- no spoilers
- By Stephen on 04-04-21
By: Alma Katsu
-
Damascus Station
- A Novel
- By: David McCloskey
- Narrated by: Andrew B. Wehrlen
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
CIA Case Officer Sam Joseph is dispatched to Paris to recruit Syrian Palace official Mariam Haddad. The two fall into a forbidden relationship, which supercharges Haddad's recruitment and creates unspeakable danger when they enter Damascus to find the man responsible for the disappearance of an American spy. But the cat-and-mouse chase for the killer soon leads to a trail of high-profile assassinations and the discovery of a dark secret at the heart of the Syrian regime.
-
-
The Performance !
- By Allenby on 01-02-22
By: David McCloskey
-
The Secret Hours
- By: Mick Herron
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two years ago, a hostile Prime Minister launched the Monochrome inquiry, investigating "historical over-reaching" by the British Secret Service “to investigate historical over-reaching.” Monochrome’s mission was to ferret out any hint of misconduct by any MI5 officer—and allowed Griselda Fleet and Malcolm Kyle, the two civil servants seconded to the project, unfettered access to any and all confidential information in the Service archives in order to do so. But MI5’s formidable First Desk did not become Britain’s top spy by accident, and she has successfully thwarted the inquiry at every turn.
-
-
Just about perfect
- By June Lapidow on 09-28-23
By: Mick Herron
-
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
-
Yesterday's Spy
- By: Tom Bradby
- Narrated by: George Weightman
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
London, 1953. Harry Towers is a recently retired, and even more recently widowed, British intelligence officer. After a night spent drinking away his sorrows, he is awakened by a phone call with chilling news. His estranged son Sean has gone missing in Tehran after writing a damning article about government officials in the opium trade. Harry springs to action, eager to reunite with his son. When he arrives in Tehran, a city roiling on the brink of a historic coup, Harry joins forces with Sean’s Iranian girlfriend Shahnaz—seemingly the only other person interested in finding him.
-
-
Yesterday's spy comes to the fore
- By Reed Ramlow on 08-26-23
By: Tom Bradby
-
Standing by the Wall
- The Collected Slough House Novellas
- By: Mick Herron
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Espionage. Blackmail. Revenge. Cunning. Slapstick. State secrets dating back to the fall of the Berlin Wall. All this and more in a tight package of five novellas by Mick Herron, CWA Gold Dagger-winning author of Slow Horses.
-
-
More Please
- By Katy on 01-27-23
By: Mick Herron
-
Red Widow
- By: Alma Katsu
- Narrated by: Mozhan Marnò
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lyndsey was once a top handler in the Moscow Field Station, where she was known as the "human lie detector" and praised for recruiting some of the most senior Russian officials. But now, three Russian assets have been exposed - including one of her own - and the CIA is convinced there's a mole in the department. With years of work in question and lives on the line, Lyndsey is thrown back into life at the agency, this time tracing the steps of those closest to her.
-
-
Somewhat disappointed- no spoilers
- By Stephen on 04-04-21
By: Alma Katsu
-
Alias Emma
- A Novel
- By: Ava Glass
- Narrated by: Sophie Colquhoun
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nothing about Emma Makepeace is real. Not even her name. A newly minted secret agent, Emma's barely graduated from basic training when she gets the call for her first major assignment. Eager to serve her country and prove her worth, she dives in headfirst. Emma must covertly travel across one of the world’s most watched cities to bring the reluctant—and handsome—son of Russian dissidents into protective custody, so long as the assassins from the Motherland don’t find him first.
-
-
Too much romance
- By Melissa Graves on 08-16-24
By: Ava Glass
-
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
-
The Mothers
- Five women. Five secrets. One missing husband.
- By: Sarah J Naughton
- Narrated by: Nicky Diss
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There's Bella, stay-at-home mum of Teddy. She suffered postpartum psychosis after Teddy's birth. There's Chrissy, divorce lawyer, married to Russell. They're having some problems with their sex life. There's Electra, mother to twins, who is struggling with her son's behaviour. There's Skye, a single mother, who used a sperm donor to have her baby. Then there's Jen. She was supposed to be a mother, but it hasn't worked out like she expected.
-
-
Great story
- By Laurie on 04-04-23
By: Sarah J Naughton
-
Down Cemetery Road
- By: Mick Herron
- Narrated by: Julia Franklin
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When a house explodes in a quiet Oxford suburb and a young girl disappears in the aftermath, Sarah Tucker becomes obsessed with finding her. Accustomed to dull chores in a childless household and hosting her husband’s wearisome business clients for dinner, Sarah suddenly finds herself questioning everything she thought she knew, as her investigation reveals that people long believed dead are still among the living, while the living are fast joining the dead.
-
-
A bit of a slog....
- By rhl60 on 01-26-24
By: Mick Herron
-
A Spy's Life
- Robert Harland Series, Book 1
- By: Henry Porter
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 15 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Robert Harland ended his career as a British spy in an Austrian hospital, after being tortured and beaten by Czech security agents in the last days of the communist regime. He was young enough then to find a new life with the Red Cross and then with the UN.
-
-
Story lost in Narrative
- By Steve Worrell on 05-08-23
By: Henry Porter
-
The Killings at Badger’s Drift
- Midsomer Murders Mystery, Book 1
- By: Caroline Graham
- Narrated by: John Hopkins
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The village of Badger's Drift is the essence of tranquillity. But when resident and well-loved spinster Miss Simpson takes a stroll in the nearby woods, she stumbles across something she was never meant to see, and there's only one way to keep her quiet. Miss Simpson's death is not suspicious, say the villagers. But Miss Lucy Bellringer refuses to rest: her friend has been murdered. She is sure of it.
-
-
I wanted to love this series but I just don't
- By Lynch on 11-09-22
By: Caroline Graham
-
The Kill Artist
- By: Daniel Silva
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After the assassination of his wife and son, Gabriel Allon retires from his brutal anti-terrorist career and loses himself in his previous cover job: art restoration. But when Tariq al-Hourani, the Palestinian terrorist responsible for his family’s death, begins a killing spree designed to destroy Middle East peace talks, Gabriel once again slips into the shadowy world of international intrigue. In a global game of hide-and-seek, the motives of Gabriel and Tariq soon become more personal than political.
-
-
Reluctant Assassin
- By Snoodely on 10-30-13
By: Daniel Silva
-
Two Nights in Lisbon
- A Novel
- By: Chris Pavone
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ariel Price wakes up in Lisbon, alone. Her husband is gone—no warning, no note, not answering his phone. Something is wrong. She starts with hotel security, then the police, then the American embassy, at each confronting questions she can’t fully answer: What exactly is John doing in Lisbon? Why would he drag her along on his business trip? Who would want to harm him? And why does Ariel know so little about her new—much younger—husband?
-
-
Don’t bother reading unless you enjoy…
- By Cynthia on 05-29-22
By: Chris Pavone
-
Trial
- By: Richard North Patterson
- Narrated by: William DeMeritt
- Length: 18 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Black eighteen-year-old voting rights worker, Malcolm Hill, is stopped by a white sheriff’s deputy on a dark country road in rural Georgia. His single mother, Allie, America’s leading voting rights advocate, restlessly awaits his return before police inform her that Malcolm has been arrested for murder. In Washington, D.C., the rising young white congressman Chase Brevard of Massachusetts is watching the morning news with his girlfriend, only to find his life transformed in a single moment by the appearance of Malcolm’s photograph.
-
-
Best work of fiction I've read this year
- By Ron Plummer on 10-15-23
-
Geneva
- By: Richard Armitage
- Narrated by: Richard Armitage, Nicola Walker, Jane Perry
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sarah Collier has taken a step back from work to spend more time with her family. Movie nights with her husband Daniel and their daughter Maddie are a welcome respite from the scrutiny of the world’s press. As much as it hurts, it’s good to be able to see her father more too. He’s suffering from Alzheimer’s and needs special care. Sarah has started to show tell-tale signs of the disease too. She’s been experiencing blackouts and memory loss. It’s early days but she must face the possibility that she won’t be there to see her daughter grow up.
-
-
Well done, Mr. Armitage!
- By Betty B. on 10-25-22
By: Richard Armitage
-
I Let You Go
- By: Clare Mackintosh
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber, Steven Crossley
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
I Let You Go follows Jenna Gray as she moves to a ramshackle cottage on the remote Welsh coast, trying to escape the memory of the car accident that plays again and again in her mind and desperate to heal from the loss of her child and the rest of her painful past. At the same time, the novel tracks the pair of Bristol police investigators trying to get to the bottom of this hit-and-run.
-
-
Compelling thriller
- By Nerida on 05-15-16
By: Clare Mackintosh
-
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
Critic reviews
"Best book I've read this year." (Simon Conway, author of The Stranger)
"The Russian Doll gripped me with layer upon dangerous layer." (Alison Bruce, author of The Moment Before Impact)
"I couldn't put it down and finished it in a day.... Superb!" (Mara Timon, author of City of Spies)
What listeners say about The Russian Doll
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lorenzo
- 01-03-22
Exactly what I needed!
love the story, loved the narrator, loved everything about this book! I really wanted a book that showed what's going on behind the scenes with business moguls and I got it!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Suzi Mitchel
- 12-08-21
Wow. A definite must-read
First book I've read from MP. Hope to read more !
You won't be disappointed
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!