-
Red Sparrow
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb
- Length: 17 hrs and 55 mins
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Publisher's summary
The start of a major career! A gripping, highly commercial espionage thriller written with the delicious insider detail and up-to-the-minute insight only known to a veteran CIA spook.
In today's Russia, dominated by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, state intelligence officer Dominika Egorova struggles to survive in the cast-iron bureaucracy of post-Soviet intelligence. Drafted against her will to become a "Sparrow" - a trained seductress in the service, Dominika is assigned to operate against Nathaniel Nash, a first-tour CIA officer who handles the CIA's most sensitive penetration of Russian intelligence. The two young intelligence officers, trained in their respective spy schools, collide in a charged atmosphere of tradecraft, deception, and inevitably, a forbidden spiral of carnal attraction that threatens their careers and the security of America's valuable mole in Moscow.
Seeking revenge against her soulless masters, Dominika begins a fatal double life, recruited by the CIA to ferret out a high-level traitor in Washington - hunt down a Russian illegal buried deep in the U.S. military and, against all odds, to return to Moscow as the new-generation penetration of Putin's intelligence service. Dominika and Nathaniel's impossible love affair and twisted spy game come to a deadly conclusion in the shocking climax of this electrifying, up-to-the minute spy thriller.
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A flawed thriller
- By John Riehl on 10-29-17
By: P. T. Deutermann
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Damage Control
- A Novel
- By: Robert Dugoni
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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A rising star at her prestigious Seattle law firm, Dana Hill knows all about stress. She pours herself into her work and family with all the energy she has. But her carefully balanced life is about to be turned upside down. First a frightening medical diagnosis forces her to reassess her roles as a lawyer, mother, and wife to a man she suddenly no longer trusts. Then her life is rocked further by the shocking and brutal murder of her twin brother.
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Better than average mystery/thriller
- By T. McCloskey on 10-08-15
By: Robert Dugoni
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The Patriots
- A Novel
- By: Sana Krasikov
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren, George Guidall
- Length: 22 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Florence Fein grows up in Brooklyn in the 1930s, in a family that is gaining a foothold in the middle class. At City College she becomes engaged politically with the left-leaning student groups, and eventually, in the midst of the Depression, she takes a job with a trade organization that has a position for her in Moscow. There, she falls in love with another expatriate American and has a son. Soon after, Florence is sent to a work camp and her son to an orphanage.
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Point of View of characters, past and present collide
- By Angela Adams on 01-29-19
By: Sana Krasikov
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State of the Onion
- A White House Chef Mystery, Book 1
- By: Julie Hyzy
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Introducing White House Assistant Chef Olivia Paras, who is rising-and sleuthing-to the top. Includes recipes for a complete presidential menu! Never let them see you sweat-that's White House Assistant Chef Olivia Paras's motto, which is pretty hard to honor in the most important kitchen in the world. She's hell-bent on earning her dream job, Executive Chef. There's just one thing: Her nemesis is vying for it, too. Well, that and the fact that an elusive assassin wants to see her fry.
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Annoying
- By Carla on 04-03-14
By: Julie Hyzy
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Wormwood
- By: Mark Dawson
- Narrated by: Gemma Whelan
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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1969. Eloise Shepherd, one of MI6's brightest rising stars, is working undercover in Soviet Russia as Magdalina Novikova. Her mission is to persuade nuclear physicist Stanislav Kalashnik to defect and bring his knowledge of Russian weapons back to the UK. On the verge of success, the operation fails suddenly and spectacularly. Seventeen years later, Kalashnik is Chief Engineer at the power plant near Pripyat known as Chernobyl. His concerns for the safety of the plant are growing.
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okay
- By ALICIA on 05-13-22
By: Mark Dawson
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Cursed
- By: S. J. Harper
- Narrated by: Johanna Parker
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Meet FBI Agents Emma Monroe and Zack Armstrong. She's cursed. He's damned. Together, they make one hell of a team. Emma Monroe is a Siren, cursed by the gods and bound to earth to atone for an ancient failure. She’s had many names and many lives, but only one mission: redemption. Now that she works missing persons cases for the FBI, it could be just a rescue away. Unless her new partner leads her astray.
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Great PNR start!
- By Tracy64 on 11-01-14
By: S. J. Harper
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The Voice of the Night with Short Story, "Silence"
- By: Dean Koontz
- Narrated by: Pavi Proczko, Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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No one could understand why Colin and Roy were best friends. Colin was so shy; Roy was so popular. Colin was fascinated by Roy - and Roy was fascinated by death. Then one day, Roy asked his timid friend: “You ever killed anything?” From that moment on, the two were bound together in a game too terrifying to imagine - and too irresistible to stop.
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can not believe dean koontz wrote this book
- By Anonymous User on 10-05-21
By: Dean Koontz
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The Unlikely Spy
- By: Daniel Silva
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 18 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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“In wartime,” Winston Churchill wrote, “truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” For Britain’s counterintelligence operations, this meant finding the unlikeliest agent imaginable - a history professor named Alfred Vicary, handpicked by Churchill himself to expose a highly dangerous, but unknown, traitor. The Nazis, however, have also chosen an unlikely agent.
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The Unlikely Spy
- By Margaret on 12-14-09
By: Daniel Silva
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The Risk Agent
- Risk Agent, Book 1
- By: Ridley Pearson
- Narrated by: Todd Haberkorn
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Grace Chu is an American-educated Chinese national now working as a forensic accountant after serving in the Chinese army as an intelligence officer. John Knox is an American who parlayed his military service during the first Iraqi war into a lucrative import/export business, which now provides him the official access he needs to work freelance undercover operations throughout the world. Both are highly skilled operatives capable of deft subterfuge or extreme violence, if circumstances require.
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Ridley is back, but he wasn't far away.
- By Dave Staats on 06-27-12
By: Ridley Pearson
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The Assassins Gallery
- By: David L. Robbins
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1945, a ruthless female assassin attempts to take down the ultimate target: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And an unlikely hero, Professor Mikhal Lammeck, may be the only one who can stop her.
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Very Good Listen
- By Andrew Stone on 12-20-12
By: David L. Robbins
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Scorpion Betrayal
- By: Andrew Kaplan
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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The head of Egypt's State Internal Security is brutally murdered in a Cairo cafe - his assailant a faceless killer known only as "the Palestinian". It is the opening move in a chilling game of terror that has caught the international intelligence community completely off-guard, and the CIA turns to the one man they believe can get to the twisted roots of a looming nightmare shrouded in mystery: a former Company operative code-named Scorpion.
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Detailed espionage, character development shallow
- By Kathryn on 11-20-13
By: Andrew Kaplan
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Expert in recognizing and anticipating behavioral patterns - a skill enhanced by her bipolar disorder she keeps secret to protect her career - Carrie is increasingly certain that a terrorist plot has been set in motion. She risks a shocking act of insubordination that helps her uncover secret evidence connecting Nightingale with Abu Nazir, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Determined to stop the terrorist mastermind, she embarks on an obsessive quest that will nearly destroy her.
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Last Call at the Nightingale
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New York, 1924. Vivian Kelly's days are filled with drudgery, from the tenement lodging she shares with her sister to the dress shop where she sews for hours every day. But at night, she escapes to The Nightingale, an underground dance hall where illegal liquor flows and the band plays the Charleston with reckless excitement.
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A fun little mystery
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The Day of the Jackal
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One of the most celebrated thrillers ever written, The Day of the Jackal is the electrifying story of an anonymous Englishman who in, the spring of 1963, was hired by Colonel Marc Rodin, operations chief of the O.A.S., to assassinate General de Gaulle.
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Tour de montagnes russes (roller coaster ride)!!!!
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The classic World War II thriller from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. One winter night, seven men and a woman are parachuted onto a mountainside in wartime Germany. Their objective: an apparently inaccessible castle, headquarters of the Gestapo. Their mission: to rescue a crashed American general before the Nazi interrogators can force him to reveal secret D-day plans.
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Great Book, Terrible Performance
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What listeners say about Red Sparrow
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Howard
- 03-27-19
Almost five stars.... ALMOST equal to Le Carre
The good: the Sparrow is a durn good yarn written by an ex-CIA spook, who, if he does not know his stuff, certainly has the imagination and writing skills to make someone think he is an expert in spying and spy craft. Welcome to the looking glass world of 2010-2012 and Putin's (Russia's) SVR vs the USA's CIA. Well written and with many cliff hangers the character of "Domi" is central to the book with everyone else third or fourth place (include Nate Nash the CIA protagonist). Having been to Moscow and St Petersburg multiple time (but on business or as a tourist never a spook) I can say that Jason Matthew's description of both is spot on and certainly captures the dark moodiness of Moscow.
I rate it a four for one reason only. I was reared on a steady diet of Le Carre (another former spook turned spy novelist). I could not help compare the two. Matthews has the ability to be the America Le Carre (who I consider the best spy novelist of all time) but he just misses that mark. The reason is simple. Le Carre NEVER explains. Ever. He never explains what the terms Lamplighter, A Burrower, Ferrets and Handwriting (to name a few) are. I would submit this failure to explain is one of the main attractions of Le Carre's writings. The reader not only has to puzzle out confusing terms but is never given a concise picture of what is happening. (I refer you to the first chapter of "Smiley's people). This puts the reader in the role of being a "spy' themselves, figuring out the plot, the characters (and their roles) and adds to the aura of reading something that is real and plausible.
Matthews (and not to drone on about what is wrong) just does too much explaining. Don't tell me over and over what a "STR" is; rather use the term and make me, the reader figure the damned thing out. The same goes for character motives; let them remain obfuscated.
Matthews has the potential to be better than just a "very good" spy novel writer; he is on the brink of being great. If he read reviews (and I bet he does not) he would be well served to read Le Carre's books and examine his technique.
All in all this is a very good, and damned close to great book.
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- barbara mitchell at charter
- 04-24-18
A chapter turner
Loved the production — including recipes at each chapter ending — stayed up all night listening to the last chapters
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- M. Rieth
- 04-18-19
Captivating story written by an insider
I alternately listened and read this series and was struck by the detailed descriptions of spycraft and clandestine operations. It was obvious to me that Mr. Mathews was intimately knowledgeable of the job of the CIA and actually gave me an appreciation for what these men and women do behind the scenes to keep America protected in a dangerous world.
Dominika is recruited by the CIA officer, Nathaniel Nash, a flawed agent who is unable to control his attraction to the beautiful and elegant former ballet dancer. Dominika has been reluctantly trained in the seductive arts in order to use those particular skills to entrap persons useful as moles to the Rodina (Russia) but it is this degrading position that ultimately repels her to the point that she is willing to turn against what she sees as Putin's corruption of her homeland. In the process she and Nate develop their affair beyond sexual attraction and Nate's colleagues, Benford, Gable, and Forsyth, only tolerate the insubordination so that Dominika will continue to produce intelligence.
The bonus of a recipe at the end of each chapter was a charming touch. Actually recipes are not quite what they were because ingredients were listed but not quantities. I found myself wondering which dish would be described. The recipes seemed authentic and brought the reader into the details of the story. Mr. Mathews is a talented writer able to vividly portray the scenes and characters, especially the food.
I found out after having read the book that a movie had been made and wondered why I hadn't heard of it. I guess the movie didn't fair well and it's my opinion that casting Jennifer Lawrence and Joel Edgerton in the lead roles were poor choices. Dominika Egorova is tall, gorgeous, and elegant with deep turquoise eyes and Nathaniel Nash is the handsome dark man that she was drawn to. The directors appear to have allowed box office appeal override the descriptions of the characters in the book. I imagined a native Russian unknown to Hollywood would have been a better choice as Dominika for authenticity, if nothing else.
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- Madelyn Stallcup
- 03-16-18
Well read, great story. I didn't want it to end.
I loved this story. Not sure how this can be made into a 2 hour movie!!
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- Betsy
- 03-30-17
Very intricate and eloquent read.
I struggled to finish this book because it was so detailed, but once I started I had to finish. It was a very intricate and beautiful story. I think, had this been a book I had to read myself I wouldn't have finished it because I am a strong "F" on the Meyer Briggs, however it had just enough emotion to keep me intrigued! I highly recommend this for anyone who is a strong "T". Happy reading!
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- Karen R Moore
- 01-05-19
Well done!
Excellent writing & research. As a long-time Le Carre fan I found this book enthralling. I hope Jason plans a series to develop these characters further.
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- PDN coach
- 10-27-16
Wonderful first novel
This was excellent. Detailed, authentic, and suspenseful espionage. I can't wait to read more from this author.
The narration was rather drab, but I got used to it. The story more than makes up for a near-monotone narration.
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- tlt77kwt
- 04-15-18
Great story
What made the experience of listening to Red Sparrow the most enjoyable?
The book gave great debt to the characters. Suspenseful
What other book might you compare Red Sparrow to and why?
I would compare this story to the Tom Clancy Jack Ryan series books.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes, but I listen going to and from work.
Any additional comments?
Have not seen the movie yet, but understand movie not as good as I consider the book tobe. I think the Red Sparrow Trilogy would have made a great Netflix or Amazon series.
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- Eldonjohn
- 04-15-18
Great Listen!
The topic itself, international espionage, is interesting because I know these activities occur daily and this book provides some insights into how/why these activities occur. Specifically, there is a lot of action and geographical movement of the characters and the author reveals each characters strengths and weaknesses in these different environments/situations. The story is written in a way that allows it to be believable.......more realistic than an 007 novel, and follows a path that isn't easily predictable.
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- Stanley T. Still
- 04-13-18
great!
so good they should make a movie about it
they did silly...well I bet it's good too.
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