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Deep Undercover
- My Secret Life and Tangled Allegiances as a KGB Spy in America
- Narrated by: Stephen Bowlby
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
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Summary
One decision can end everything...or lead to unlikely redemption.
Millions watched the CBS 60 Minutes special on Jack Barsky in 2015. Now, in this fascinating memoir, the Soviet KGB agent tells his story of gut-wrenching choices, appalling betrayals, his turbulent inner world, and the secret life he lived for years without getting caught.
On October 8, 1978, a Canadian national by the name of William Dyson stepped off a plane at O'Hare International Airport and proceeded toward customs and immigration.
Two days later, William Dyson ceased to exist.
The identity was a KGB forgery, used to get one of their own - a young, ambitious East German agent - into the United States.
The plan succeeded, and the spy's new identity was born: Jack Barsky. He would work undercover for the next decade, carrying out secret operations during the Cold War years - until a surprising shift in his allegiance challenged everything he thought he believed.
Deep Undercover reveals the secret life of this man without a country and tells the story no one ever expected him to tell.
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- Alexander Brown
- 25-07-21
Absolute drivel! Do NOT waste your money / credits
I don’t normally bother with negative reviews, leaning on the adage that if you can’t say something good say nothing at all and hope the lack of positive comments will steer others clear. But, in this case, I can’t help myself.
I’m a bit of a cold war buff, both factual and fictional. In recent years I’ve really enjoyed some intellectual properties that show the Soviets in a light not demanded by Reagan’s ultra-conservative 80’s America – The Americans, Comrade Detective and the Xbox videogame series Metro (based on the novels of Dmitry Glukhovsky) are all firm favourites of mine, so on paper this should have been right up my street. It was not.
The early chapters on the author’s childhood in the DDR (or GDR, if you don’t have even the simplest understanding of the German language) are the most interesting offering a genuine look at a young life behind the iron curtain, but even these feel somewhat airbrushed by relatively privileged life “Jack” leads: It’s hard to have much sympathy for the son of a respected headmaster in good party standing who can afford cars and family holidays as the rest of the country was collapsing all around them. From then on, pretty. Everything seems to fall right into his lap, with his academic career amounting to “I did this, I did that, I did the other and found myself at the top of every class I ever took without really trying”.
The “tangled allegiances” of the title are absent. As soon as “Jack” crosses to the west and realises there’s enough food to go around and the clothes are nicer, he shrugs off the beliefs that were supposed to be iron-clad without a tip of the hat or a “Fare ye well, comrades!” Going to work for an American health-insurance company – pretty much the least socialist enterprise on the planet – is mentioned only remarked on in the context of a KGB agent working for a fortune 500 company being ironic. The fall of the Berlin wall only gets two or three sentences from someone who spent his young life in its metaphorical shadow.
There never seems to be any real danger, either from US or soviet agents. He was smuggled into the US, got a minimum-wage job while he went to a city college, got a degree and went to work for a big company where he rose through the ranks. No strangling people with piano-wire, no microfilms exchanged at the statue of Liberty no “shaken, not stirred”. I’m also tempted to call “Jack” out on something: He tells the KGB that he’s dying of AIDS, so he can’t ever come home. He doesn’t bother to stage a funeral, or even stop using the same name and bank accounts, yet we’re supposed to believe that the KGB he fears so deeply wouldn’t make enquiries about the unsubstantiated death of someone they invested such significant time and resources in? It genuinely seems beyond belief.
The absolute worst is saved for the Deus Ex Machina ending. His road to Damascus moment on a golf-course, suddenly thinking “Hey, the air seems a bit buzzy today… Maybe that Jesus guy was right about everything, I should change my entire life!” is just the pinnacle of cringe. I’m sure it was 100% genuine and had nothing to with the attractive subordinate 20+ years his junior whose pants he was trying to get in to. The total hypocrisy of abandoning his first family to probable interrogation by the notoriously brutal Stassi and KGB just because he could connect better with the daughter he’d been living rather than the son he saw for a week every two years, is despicable.
If you want fictional excitement and intrigue, try Jon le Carre. If you want factual accounts of espionage and the cold war, go for Tim Weiner’s Legacy of Ashes, or David Morris’ Wilderness of Mirrors, or anything by Anne Applebaum about live behind the iron curtain. Just avoid this hogwash like your braincells depend on it.
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6 people found this helpful
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- RJ Storey
- 17-08-21
until the end
it was good until the bible bashing started. I couldn't finish, pity I was enjoying it. it just became too much.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Ilker
- 19-11-21
Just don’t waste your time.
I just feel sorry for Stephen Bowlby for being have to read all this 🤦♂️ story is not good.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Joanne Brown
- 10-09-20
Factual and human
This honest retelling of a man's journey out of the GDR and into the American dream is fascinating. There is little to no political bias and if opinion is given, it is well labelled as such. I felt the book hit a low point in the last few chapters after the author received his religious revelation and then went on to lecture the reader on how loving Jesus is the only way. Could have done without that.
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1 person found this helpful
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- PJMUK
- 21-03-24
Most great. End anoying
Well read and pretty good story,but you need to stick with it- except the last 90 minutes when this turned from a spy story to a god saves all story. Wasn’t expecting that and spoiled it for me.
Would have been better have a sharper ending
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- Mistermike
- 17-02-24
Sadly disappointing
I had high hopes for this book, hoping for insight into the world of espionage from the KGB perspective. Sadly not to be and the final sections drenched in religion for me was too much.
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- Lou R
- 11-12-23
looking forward to pressing play every time!
amazingly narrated, a story that is very well written and crafted, makes you connect with the author and press rewind if you missed a sentence. 10/10 this one.
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- Ian Dawson
- 24-11-23
Interesting
Interesting story, the last hour is very convenient for the author. Oh now I’ve religion I’ve no shame for my past
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- Amazon Customer
- 22-11-23
Fascinating, gripping
a brilliant listen. I'd heard Barsky on the related podcast Mother, Neighbour, Russian Spy (an Audible original) - which I'd also recommend. this is a gripping retelling ofBarsky's life, although the last few chapters are a little Religion heavy for me, and the moments leading up to Barsky retiring are a little rushed.
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- Dezso Batancs
- 28-10-23
Stunning!
Highly detailed and very honest story of a life. An open window to the insight of the most secretive profession.
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