-
The Secret Pilgrim
- A George Smiley Novel
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Series: Smiley, Book 8
- Length: 13 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $16.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
A Legacy of Spies
- A Novel
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Tom Hollander
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Peter Guillam, staunch colleague and disciple of George Smiley of the British Secret Service, otherwise known as the Circus, is living out his old age on the family farmstead on the south coast of Brittany when a letter from his old service summons him to London. The reason? His Cold War past has come back to claim him. Intelligence operations that were once the toast of secret London, and involved such characters as Alec Leamas, Jim Prideaux, George Smiley, and Peter Guillam himself, are to be scrutinized by a generation with no memory of the Cold War.
-
-
All for England
- By Darwin8u on 09-12-17
By: John le Carré
-
The Russia House
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Glasnost" is on everyone's lips, but the rules of the game haven’t changed for either side. When a beautiful Russian woman foists off a manuscript on an unwitting bystander at the Moscow Book Fair, it's a miracle that she flies under the Soviets' radar. Or does she? The woman's source (codename: Bluebird) will trust only Barley Blair, a whiskey-soaked gentleman publisher with a poet's heart.
-
-
difficult poetry
- By nancy on 04-16-13
By: John le Carré
-
The Night Manager
- A Novel
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: David Case
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John le Carré, the legendary author of sophisticated spy thrillers, is at the top of his game in this classic novel of a world in chaos. With the Cold War over, a new era of espionage has begun. In the power vacuum left by the Soviet Union, arms dealers and drug smugglers have risen to immense influence and wealth. The sinister master of them all is Richard Onslow Roper, the charming, ruthless Englishman whose operation seems untouchable.
-
-
David Case's Narration the Worst on Planet Earth
- By Cody Laumeister on 08-15-19
By: John le Carré
-
A Small Town in Germany
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the New York Times best-selling author of A Legacy of Spies. "Haven't you realized that only appearances matter"? The British Embassy in Bonn is up in arms. Her Majesty's financially troubled government is seeking admission to Europe's Common Market just as anti-British factions are rising to power in Germany. Rioters are demanding reunification, and the last thing the Crown can afford is a scandal. Then Leo Harting - an embassy nobody - goes missing with a case full of confidential files.
-
-
very good spy/mystery
- By Darryl on 04-28-13
By: John le Carré
-
The Little Drummer Girl
- A Novel
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 20 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On holiday in Mykonos, Charlie wants only sunny days and a brief escape from England's bourgeois dreariness. Then a handsome stranger lures the aspiring actress away from her pals - but his intentions are far from romantic. Joseph is an Israeli intelligence officer, and Charlie has been wooed to flush out the leader of a Palestinian terrorist group responsible for a string of deadly bombings. Still uncertain of her own allegiances, she debuts in the role of a lifetime as a double agent in the "theatre of the real".
-
-
Terror is Theatre: Le Carré Awakens Anger & Love
- By Darwin8u on 07-24-12
By: John le Carré
-
Agent Running in the Field
- A Novel
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: John le Carré
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nat, a 47 year-old veteran of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, believes his years as an agent runner are over. He is back in London with his wife, the long-suffering Prue. But with the growing threat from Moscow Centre, the office has one more job for him. Nat is to take over The Haven, a defunct substation of London General with a rag-tag band of spies. The only bright light on the team is young Florence, who has her eye on Russia Department and a Ukrainian oligarch with a finger in the Russia pie.
-
-
Excellent
- By Rod Hemsell on 10-30-19
By: John le Carré
-
A Legacy of Spies
- A Novel
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Tom Hollander
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Peter Guillam, staunch colleague and disciple of George Smiley of the British Secret Service, otherwise known as the Circus, is living out his old age on the family farmstead on the south coast of Brittany when a letter from his old service summons him to London. The reason? His Cold War past has come back to claim him. Intelligence operations that were once the toast of secret London, and involved such characters as Alec Leamas, Jim Prideaux, George Smiley, and Peter Guillam himself, are to be scrutinized by a generation with no memory of the Cold War.
-
-
All for England
- By Darwin8u on 09-12-17
By: John le Carré
-
The Russia House
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Glasnost" is on everyone's lips, but the rules of the game haven’t changed for either side. When a beautiful Russian woman foists off a manuscript on an unwitting bystander at the Moscow Book Fair, it's a miracle that she flies under the Soviets' radar. Or does she? The woman's source (codename: Bluebird) will trust only Barley Blair, a whiskey-soaked gentleman publisher with a poet's heart.
-
-
difficult poetry
- By nancy on 04-16-13
By: John le Carré
-
The Night Manager
- A Novel
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: David Case
- Length: 18 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
John le Carré, the legendary author of sophisticated spy thrillers, is at the top of his game in this classic novel of a world in chaos. With the Cold War over, a new era of espionage has begun. In the power vacuum left by the Soviet Union, arms dealers and drug smugglers have risen to immense influence and wealth. The sinister master of them all is Richard Onslow Roper, the charming, ruthless Englishman whose operation seems untouchable.
-
-
David Case's Narration the Worst on Planet Earth
- By Cody Laumeister on 08-15-19
By: John le Carré
-
A Small Town in Germany
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 13 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the New York Times best-selling author of A Legacy of Spies. "Haven't you realized that only appearances matter"? The British Embassy in Bonn is up in arms. Her Majesty's financially troubled government is seeking admission to Europe's Common Market just as anti-British factions are rising to power in Germany. Rioters are demanding reunification, and the last thing the Crown can afford is a scandal. Then Leo Harting - an embassy nobody - goes missing with a case full of confidential files.
-
-
very good spy/mystery
- By Darryl on 04-28-13
By: John le Carré
-
The Little Drummer Girl
- A Novel
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 20 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On holiday in Mykonos, Charlie wants only sunny days and a brief escape from England's bourgeois dreariness. Then a handsome stranger lures the aspiring actress away from her pals - but his intentions are far from romantic. Joseph is an Israeli intelligence officer, and Charlie has been wooed to flush out the leader of a Palestinian terrorist group responsible for a string of deadly bombings. Still uncertain of her own allegiances, she debuts in the role of a lifetime as a double agent in the "theatre of the real".
-
-
Terror is Theatre: Le Carré Awakens Anger & Love
- By Darwin8u on 07-24-12
By: John le Carré
-
Agent Running in the Field
- A Novel
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: John le Carré
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nat, a 47 year-old veteran of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, believes his years as an agent runner are over. He is back in London with his wife, the long-suffering Prue. But with the growing threat from Moscow Centre, the office has one more job for him. Nat is to take over The Haven, a defunct substation of London General with a rag-tag band of spies. The only bright light on the team is young Florence, who has her eye on Russia Department and a Ukrainian oligarch with a finger in the Russia pie.
-
-
Excellent
- By Rod Hemsell on 10-30-19
By: John le Carré
-
The Constant Gardener
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Frightening, heartbreaking, and exquisitely calibrated, John le Carré's new novel opens with the gruesome murder of the young and beautiful Tessa Quayle near northern Kenya's Lake Turkana, the birthplace of mankind. Her putative African lover and traveling companion, a doctor with one of the aid agencies, has vanished from the scene of the crime. Tessa's much older husband, Justin, a career diplomat at the British High Commission in Nairobi, sets out on a personal odyssey in pursuit of the killers and their motive.
-
-
Greatest love story of the last fifty years
- By Darwin8u on 06-30-13
By: John le Carré
-
A Perfect Spy
- A Novel
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 20 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the course of his seemingly irreproachable life, Magnus Pym has been all things to all people: a devoted family man, a trusted colleague, a loyal friend - and the perfect spy. But in the wake of his estranged father's death, Magnus vanishes, and the British Secret Service is up in arms. Is it grief, or is the reason for his disappearance more sinister? And who is the mysterious man with the sad moustache who also seems to be looking for Magnus? In A Perfect Spy, John le Carré has crafted one of his crowning masterpieces.
-
-
My favorite Le Carré story
- By William E. Bemis on 03-30-16
By: John le Carré
-
Single & Single
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A lawyer from the London finance house of Single & Single is shot dead on a Turkish hillside by people with whom he thought he was in business. A children's magician is asked by his bank to explain the unsolicited arrival of more than five million pounds sterling in his young daughter's modest trust. A freighter bound for Liverpool is boarded by Russian coast guards in the Black Sea. The celebrated London merchant venturer "Tiger" Single disappears into thin air.
-
-
The spy who came back to the bank
- By Darwin8u on 03-12-14
By: John le Carré
-
A Delicate Truth
- A Novel
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: John le Carré
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A counter-terrorist operation, code-named Wildlife, is being mounted on the British crown colony of Gibraltar. Its purpose: To capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms buyer. Its authors: An ambitious Foreign Office Minister, a private defense contractor who is also his bosom friend, and a shady American CIA operative of the evangelical far-right. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister’s personal private secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it. Three years later, a disgraced Special Forces Soldier delivers a message from the dead.
-
-
A latter-day Jeremiah of espionage & statecraft.
- By Darwin8u on 05-15-13
By: John le Carré
-
The Mission Song
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: David Oyelowo
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Abandoned by his parents, Bruno Salvador has long looked for guidance. He found it in Mr. Anderson of British Intelligence. Working for Anderson in a clandestine facility, Salvo (as he's known) translates intercepted phone calls, bugged recordings, and snatched voice-mail messages. When Anderson sends him to a mysterious island to interpret during a secret conference, Bruno thinks he is helping Britain--but then he hears something he should not have.
-
-
Audio Triumph
- By Peter on 12-25-06
By: John le Carré
-
John le Carré Value Collection
- Tailor of Panama, Our Game, and Night Manager
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: John le Carré
- Length: 16 hrs and 6 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Night Manager: Enter the new world of post-Cold War espionage. Penetrate the secret world of ruthless arms dealers and drug smugglers who have risen to unthinkable power and wealth. Our Game: With the Cold War fought and won, British spymaster Tim Cranmer accepts early retirement to rural England and a new life with his alluring young mistress, Emma.... Tailor of Panama: Le Carre's Panama is a Casablanca without heroes, a hotbed of drugs, laundered money and corruption. It is also the country which on December 31, 1999, will gain full control of the Panama Canal.
-
-
Abridged. Very abridged.
- By Chuck on 06-14-21
By: John le Carré
-
Absolute Friends
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: John le Carré
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By chance and not by choice, Ted Mundy, eternal striver, failed writer, and expatriate son of a British Army officer, used to be a spy. But that was in the good old Cold War days when a cinder-block wall divided Berlin and the enemy was easy to recognize.
-
-
Le Carre has a point of view
- By Ann on 02-03-04
By: John le Carré
-
The Pigeon Tunnel
- Stories from My Life
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: John le Carré
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From his years serving in British Intelligence during the Cold War, to a career as a writer that took him from war-torn Cambodia to Beirut on the cusp of the 1982 Israeli invasion to Russia before and after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, le Carré has always written from the heart of modern times. In this, his first memoir, le Carré is as funny as he is incisive, reading into the events he witnesses the same moral ambiguity with which he imbues his novels.
-
-
A wonderful reader from a favorite author
- By Mark Hancock on 11-19-16
By: John le Carré
-
The Tailor of Panama
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: John le Carré
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Le Carre's Panama is a Casablanca without heroes, a hotbed of drugs, laundered money and corruption. It is also the country which on December 31, 1999, will gain full control of the Panama Canal.
-
-
Read by the author- such a wonderful book
- By MND42 on 11-12-17
By: John le Carré
-
The Complete George Smiley Radio Dramas
- BBC Radio 4 Full-Cast Dramatisation
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: full cast, Simon Russell Beale
- Length: 18 hrs and 59 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The complete collection of acclaimed BBC Radio dramas based on John le Carré's best-selling novels, starring Simon Russell Beale as George Smiley. With a star cast including Kenneth Cranham, Eleanor Bron, Brian Cox, Ian MacDiarmid, Anna Chancellor, Hugh Bonneville and Lindsay Duncan, these enthralling dramatisations perfectly capture the atmosphere of le Carré's taut, thrilling spy novels.
-
-
good reading but can't navigate
- By RB Vancouver on 01-07-17
By: John le Carré
-
The Day of the Jackal
- By: Frederick Forsyth
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Holds Up Nicely
- By Dean on 09-14-11
-
11-22-63
- A Novel
- By: Stephen King
- Narrated by: Craig Wasson
- Length: 30 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King - who has absorbed the social, political, and popular culture of his generation more imaginatively and thoroughly than any other writer - takes listeners on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it.
-
-
Great! Boring. Good again... Boring. Too long.
- By Taxvictim on 06-04-12
By: Stephen King
Publisher's Summary
After the Berlin Wall comes down and opens up new changes in Eastern Europe, John le Carre's stunning novel, The Secret Pilgrim, takes us behind the scenes into the former Cold War world.
Nothing is as it was. Old enemies embrace. The dark staging grounds of the Cold War, whose shadows barely obscured the endless games of espionage, are flooded with light; the rules are rewritten, the stakes changed, the future unfathomable. John le Carre seized this momentous turning point in history to give us the most disturbing experience we have yet had of the frail and brutal world of spydom.
The man called Ned speaks to us. All his adult life he has been in British Intelligence - the Circus - a loyal, shrewd, wily officer of the Cold War. Now, approaching the end of his career, he revisits his own past. He invites us on a tour of his three decades in the Circus, burrowing deep into the twilight world where he ran spies - 'joes' - from Poland, Estonia, Hungary.
More from the same
What listeners say about The Secret Pilgrim
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Leonard
- 01-05-13
A Classic That Only Gets Better
For fans of LeCarre's Smiley character, The Secret Pilgrim will be a great trip down memory lane. I read all of the Smiley novels, however, I don't remember this one. So when I saw it on the Audible list I quickly downloaded it. I was not disappointed at all. The story was classic LeCarre and Jayston's narration was phenomenal - it was as though Smiley was sitting in the room with you. A great audio experience.
15 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Darwin8u
- 01-09-13
Finish Line & NOT Starting Point for George Smiley
A final wrap-up to le Carré's George Smiley series is a chronological narrative of short-stories framed around the memories of spy Ned, and the stories of George Smiley, given to a group of trainees selected for the Secret Service. The stories span the 40+ years of the Cold War, and capture the gradual disillusionment of Ned and the ambiguity of the sagacious/perceptive George Smiley.
While this is not the best in the George Smiley oeuvre, it is a nice victory lap. It allowed le Carré the opportunity to publish a few pieces he had worked on, but not yet turned into novels...while also revisiting the themes of morality/love/individual vs amorality/duty/institutions he constantly addressed and returned to in his Circus/Smiley novels.
30 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Darryl
- 04-20-13
a great cap to Smiley series
I went through all the Smiley novels in a couple weeks and was never bored. Smiley is a great character, very human and troubled but a little brilliant like Sherlock or Poirot. This is a set of short stories, some lengthy, concerning various missions mainly remembered by the other character who is listening to Smiley talk to a group of students but each story is in itself a little gem and as with series deals with much more than just the "spy" aspects. the people are very real and human and suffering and you feel for many of them even if they are on the "wrong" side. looking forward to more LeCarre.
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Linda
- 07-29-18
George Smiley Regales The Nursury With his Past
You must read the entire set of books about George Smiley before reading this one. This is a collection of stories about George Smiley told by George Smiley when he agrees to give a lecture at Ned’s class of potential future spies, known as The Nursury. George shows up and is introduced by Ned to the class of boys and girls (girls only recently allowed to join the ‘elite’ group of spies to be). You must know the characters and the stories about Smiley to understand this book. I must admit that after finishing the book I had to go back and listen to the first chapter to remind myself of how the book had begun. le Carre is a master of espionage. He is the watcher of the entire British network and add nuances that make it very complicated and shed light on the entire British system and how the spies see themselves as the top echelon of British pecking orders. This is a great novel and one every fan of espionage must read BUT only in the order of publication. These are so nuanced that the avid reader will enjoy them over and over again. I’m sure that I will be listening to Michael Jayston narrate these stories several more times. There is that much new to hear because you can’t possible remember it all. The accents of the different spies and their mistresses and mistakes. So, buy the complete set of 9 Smiley books and put your feet up in front of the fire and enjoy the British espionage and Russian counter intelligence at its best.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dog lover1
- 03-18-13
Great fun to revisit George Smiley
Would you consider the audio edition of The Secret Pilgrim to be better than the print version?
If you enjoyed the George Smiley books, this series of short stories, that include the Smiley character, will be a pleasure to read. Michael Jayston was the perfect narrator for these stories about the world of British spies.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 11-03-16
Worth it if you've read all that come before
Is there anything you would change about this book?
This one is really good but not as a stand alone, the short story format of this book is quite different than the others, but if you're already in love with Smiley's world...it's an extra dollop of whip cream on top to indulge in. Jayston is truly gifted and so consistent throughout all the books.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Rosalind Britton
- 10-09-15
Pure Brit
Where does The Secret Pilgrim rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
I cannot really rank this since I am a huge fan of Le Carre. Suffice to say it is excellent.
Have you listened to any of Michael Jayston’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
Jayston is a fine actor, whom I saw often in BBC dramas. He gets the nuances and idiosyncrasies of British upper class speech perfectly, as well as the other characters that Le Carre creates so vividly.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- LiLi
- 03-15-19
Mesmerizing
Le Carre has never written a bad book. Some of them are good, some brilliant, and this one is brilliant. While some reviews mention that Smiley is peripheral to this story, I would say he's front and center. He is the pivot point for the narrator and main character, central to some of Ned's reminiscences, nudging his memory toward others. For me, this was a particularly satisfying discovery since I'd somehow missed this book in my prior treks through the works of Mr. Le Carre, who is one of the great novelists of our time.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 04-15-16
Best listen in the past ten years !
This Cold Warrior was mesmerized by the tales of moral ambiguity ; especially the stand alone short stories in Parts 8 and Ten.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- James
- 12-21-15
exceptional
Gripping and widely varied short stories masterfully interwoven into the "Smiley" universe.
Eccentric (and often poignantly tragic) characters are sensitively and subtley portrayed against the backdrop of the intelligence community and it's surreal mode of life.
2 people found this helpful