Guy Burgess cover art

Guy Burgess

The Spy Who Knew Everyone

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Guy Burgess

By: Stewart Purvis, Jeff Hulbert
Narrated by: Andrew Cullum
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About this listen

Cambridge spy Guy Burgess was a supreme networker. He also set a gold standard for conflicts of interest, working variously for the BBC, MI5, MI6, the War Office, the Ministry of Information and the KGB. Yet Burgess was never challenged by Britain's spy catchers: his superiors were convinced he was too much of a liability to have been recruited by Moscow.

Now, with a major new release of hundreds of files into the National Archives, Purvis and Hulbert reveal just how this charming establishment insider was able to fool everyone for so long, without suspicion, all the while working for the KGB.

©2016 Stewart Purvis & Jeff Hulbert (P)2016 Oakhill Publishing Espionage Europe Freedom & Security Great Britain Historical Politicians Politics & Activism Politics & Government Russia True Crime War England Imperialism Royalty Soviet Union Winston Churchill United Kingdom Socialism

Critic Reviews

"[An] excellent biography." ( Financial Times)
"Adds much to a familiar story thanks to newly released files.... [Stewart Purvis and Jeff Hulbert's] revelations leave us all the more astonished that such a smelly, scruffy, lying, gabby, promiscuous, drunken slob could penetrate the heart of the establishment without anyone apparently noticing that he was also a Soviet masterspy." ( The Observer)
All stars
Most relevant  
This is a detailed, informative, and extremely interesting study of Guy Burgess's life, his circle, and the political climate of the times. The authors suggest that Burgess was smarter than his contemporaries in official positions believed and that his shambling unappealing facade was part of his overall and ultimately successful strategy of hiding in plain sight. If the powers that be hadn't been so mired in a mindset which placed background and which school/university a person attended above obvious red flags, Burgess would have had a harder time getting away with what he did. I'm reading the book a second time because there's a large cast of characters to keep track of and because it's a fascinating read. But I'm having to steel myself for the astonishing number of mispronounced words.

Andrew Cullum has an excellent voice, pleasant English accent, and very clear diction but he holds my personal record for the highest number of such blunders of any audiobook I've listened to. I wrote down any I heard when pen and paper were to hand and have a total of 15 individual words. Burgess's fellow spy Maclean necessarily features throughout the book and his name is mispronounced every time. Among others we have TRIPOS, Goebbels, Strachey, (J M) Keynes, Ischia, and the perennial clanger so common among British narrators - Roosevelt.

In summary, the book itself has my highest recommendation but with the caveat that readers will have to be prepared to be jolted by the plethora of mispronounced words.

Great book, pity about the narration

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