Great book, pity about the narration

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.

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