True Crime Spy

The “riveting, meticulously researched, and beautifully written” (Ben Macintyre, author of The Spy and the Traitor) true story chronicles the first and most legendary prisoner exchange of the Cold War, between East and West at Berlin’s Glienicke Bridge and Checkpoint Charlie “A...

A legal analyst for NPR, NBC, and CNN, delves into the facts surrounding what has been called the “worst intelligence disaster in US history”: the case of Robert Hanssen—a Russian spy who was embedded in the FBI for two decades.

What's it like to be a spy? Glamorous and exciting? Just like James Bond? Find out in these true tales of international espionage. Hear about the Internet spy who hacked into military secrets - and ended up dead; the ruthless emperor who spied on his own army; and the double agent who was awarded medals for bravery - by the country he had betrayed. Discover amazing facts about equipment, codes and disguises and enter the intriguing world of real-life spies!

Who were the three men the Soviet and American superpowers exchanged on Berlin's Glienicke Bridge on February 10, 1962? Bridge of Spies is the true story of those men - Rudolf Abel, a Soviet Spy who was a master of disguise; Gary Powers, an American who was captured when his spy plane was shot down; and Frederic Pryor, a young American doctor mistakenly identified as a spy. They had been drawn into the nadir of the Cold War by duty and curiosity, rescued against daunting odds by fate and by their families, and then all but forgotten.

In the early 1980s on a remote part of the Sudanese coast, a new luxury holiday resort opened for business. Catering for divers, it attracted guests from around the world. Little did the holidaymakers know that the staff were undercover spies, working for the Mossad - the Israeli secret service. Providing a front for covert night-time activities, the holiday village allowed the agents to carry out an operation unlike any seen before. What began with one cryptic message pleading for help, turned into the secret evacuation of thousands of Ethiopian Jews....

When Aline Griffith was born in Pearl River, New York, in 1923, one might have guessed from her exceptional beauty that a career as an actress or model might be in her future. Few would have imagined that twenty-one years later, she would find herself in Spain as a deep-cover OSS agent, infiltrating the highest levels of Spanish society, or that five years later still, she would marry a Spanish grandee and become one of the most watched, most admired, most fascinating women of international society. This is the story of Aline, Countess of Romanones, a story of courage, beauty and success that is far more exciting than any fictionalized thriller.

Kim Philby was the most notorious British defector and Soviet mole in history. Agent, double agent, traitor and enigma, he betrayed every secret of Allied operations to the Russians in the early years of the Cold War. This is a story of loyalty, trust and treachery, of male friendships forged, and then systematically betrayed. With access to newly released MI5 files and previously unseen papers, A Spy Among Friends unlocks what was perhaps the last great secret of the Cold War.

Drawing on a wealth of previously classified intelligence archives, in multiple countries and languages, it reveals how Western and Eastern governments used spies, sabotage, subversion, and information warfare to battle each other during the conflict that dominated the twentieth century. Far from being a closed historical chapter, however, it shows that conflict's ghosts are still alive.

August 2022. Simon Sharman is out for revenge, pursuing the assassin of his former colleague across war-torn Ukraine. Back in London, a Russian spy ring at the heart of the British Establishment remains active, attempting to sabotage the West's support for Ukraine. In the fiercely contested Donbas region, Simon finds himself sucked into a terrifying shadow conflict between Russia and the West. Can a lone spy make a difference to the course of a conflict?

The Spy with No Name is the unbelievable true story of Erwin van Haarlem, a Cold War secret agent whose stolen identity broke the heart of an innocent woman - who thought she'd found her long-lost son. In 1977, Johanna van Haarlem, 52, finally tracked down the son she had abandoned as a baby, during the Second World War. She was delighted that he had grown into a charming Dutch waiter in London. But Erwin van Haarlem was actually a dangerous Communist spy who had stolen her son's identity to uncover British and American military secrets.

The Spycatcher affair remains one of the most intriguing moments in the history of British intelligence and a pivotal point in the public's relationship with the murky world of espionage and security. It lifted the lid on alleged Soviet infiltration of British services and revealed a culture of law-breaking, bugging and burgling. But how much do we know about the story behind the scandal?

A Spy in the Family: An Incredible True Story of Espionage and Betrayal is the first audiobook to reveal the full, astonishing story of ‘Václav Jelínek’, aka Erwin van Haarlem, using previously unseen documents from the UK, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic.

Professor, friend, Soviet spy; who was the real Hugh Hambleton? He was a well-respected economist who had studied and worked at some of the most prestigious universities in the world, as well as NATO and the Canadian International Development Agency. Yet, in December 1982, he was charged by a British court of spying for the KGB and sentenced to ten years in jail. Over the course of thirty years Hambleton had deceived his friends and colleagues as he passed photographs of thousands of classified items to the Soviet Union.

In the quiet cul-de-sac where Keith and Stephen live, the only immediate signs of the Second World War are the blackouts at night and a single random bomb-site. But the two boys suspect that the ordinary houses in the Close and their inhabitants are not what they seem.

In June 1952, a woman was murdered by an obsessive colleague in a hotel in South Kensington. Her name was Christine Granville. That she died young was perhaps unsurprising, but that she had survived the Second World War was remarkable. She was one of Britain’s most daring and highly decorated secret agents, and the intelligence she gathered was a significant contribution to the Allied war effort.

In 2014, American private contractor Alan Gross was rotting in a Cuban prison, convicted of undermining the Havana regime. At that same time, Cuban intelligence agent Gerardo Hernández was serving two life sentences in a US federal penitentiary on charges related to espionage. Then, it all changed. I Spy: The U.S., Cuba, and the Secret Deal That Ended the Cold War describes how secret negotiations to free the two men helped bring an end to half a century of hostilities between the United States and Cuba.

In To Catch a Spy: The Art of Counterintelligence, James M. Olson, former chief of CIA counterintelligence, offers a wake-up call for the American public and also a guide for how our country can do a better job of protecting its national security and trade secrets. Olson takes the listener into the arcane world of counterintelligence as he lived it during his 30-year career in the CIA.

Decorated army officer Major Ed Dames tells the shocking true story of his time asoperations and training officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency's top-secret Psychic Intelligence Unit. Together with his PSI Spyteam, Dames used the practice of remote viewing to uncover accurate and verifiable military intelligence by going where no intel operatives on the ground could go - into the very mind of the enemy.

Spy Tiger: The 05 File is a memoir by Kagusthan Ariaratnam with Michael Bramadat-Willcock; an award-winning journalist, editor, andresearcher. Kagusthan is a man whose life story is as gripping as any espionage thriller. At just 17 years old, Kagusthan was kidnapped from his high school and thrust into the ranks of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the militant organization infamous for its brutal tactics in the Sri Lankan Civil War. Kagusthan quickly became an intelligence officer as a child soldier, working alongside the Tiger leadership.

In 2008, almost two decades after the Cold War was officially consigned to the history books, an average American guy helped to bring down a top Russian spy based at the United Nations. He had no formal espionage training. Everything he knew about spying he'd learned from books, films, video games and TV. And yet, he ended up at the centre of a highly successful counterintelligence operation that targeted Russian espionage in America.