Book picks similar to
A Time for Spies: Theodore Stephanovich Mally and the Era of the Great Illegals by William E. Duff
biography
communism
espionage
spies
Our Vinnie
Julie Shaw - 2014
So when one of their own was wronged in any way, the community always had its own way of dealing with it.The first title in a series of gritty family sagas, Our Vinnie accounts the dramatic true story of a brother’s determination to avenge his younger sister’s rape. Josie was just 11 when her Vinnie, then 14, was taken away to a detention centre. Distraught by his absence and left alone with indifferent parents, when she escapes from one of their rows she naively enters the house of a neighbour, Melvin, who – horrifically – leads her upstairs and overpowers her.Convinced by her friend Carol, Josie tells her sister Lyndsey about the rape but, with Vinnie out of the picture, Lyndsey uses the information for her own ends. When Vinnie returns, hardened by years inside the system, his outrage on discovering the truth is severe. And with new abuses continually coming to light, a cataclysmic series of violent events begins to spiral out of control…Dramatic and shocking, Our Vinnie is an unbelievable page-turner, documenting a community forsaken by society, and one brother’s unrelenting determination to take justice into his own hands.
T.O.
Terrell Owens - 2006
Terrell Owens joined the Philadelphia Eagles for the 2004 season hoping to help the Eagles win the Super Bowl. The Eagles almost did it, losing a close game to the New England Patriots. TO expected to have a long and productive career in Philadelphia. But less than halfway through the 2005 season it all fell apart. TO was suspended, first for a game, then for the season, as the Eagles blamed him for a variety of infractions.Now TO speaks out about what really happened in Philadelphia. He takes readers behind the scenes -- and into the huddle -- to show how he was unfairly blamed for conduct detrimental to his team. After setting an Eagles record for touchdown receptions, TO was badly injured late in the 2004 season. Most observers thought his season was over. But TO put himself through a grueling rehab, which he describes here, to recover in time to join his teammates in the Super Bowl, turning in a remarkable performance. Convinced that the Eagles could win it all in 2005, TO became only the sixth receiver in NFL history with 100 touchdown receptions. He explains in "T.O." how and why his relationship with Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb deteriorated. The situation worsened when TO agreed with Michael Irvin that the Eagles would be better off with Brett Favre as their quarterback. A fight in the team locker room, where an injured TO had to defend himself, caused further friction. Before long he was suspended from the team for the entire season. TO contested his suspension and took his case before an arbitrator. In this book TO brings readers into the hearing room and shows how unfair the arbitrator's precedent-setting decision really was. The decision was so wrong that even the NFL agreed to pass a rule specifically reversing it.But "T.O." is a story of triumph and dedication. TO never lost his commitment to the game, and whenever he had the chance, he performed like the sensational athlete he is. He knew he would play again, and his faith was rewarded when he signed a three-year, $25 million contract with the Dallas Cowboys prior to the 2006 season. Throughout his ordeal, TO remained true to himself, the same outsized personality who has rocked the NFL and become a football superstar.
All My Brother’s Secrets: A powerful true story of love, loss and brutality
Terence O’Neill - 2020
There they were to suffer brutal beatings and little care or love – they survived as best they could, looking out for each other, until the terrible morning when Terry couldn’t wake Dennis.In a time when the country was united by war and struggle, this landmark case shocked the nation and made headlines around the world. Terry, a small figure in the courtroom, captured the hearts of mothers and families everywhere, and the public outcry against the foster services led to the instigation of the first provisions to protect other vulnerable children from neglect and cruelty.This is the remarkable true story of a boy who couldn’t save his brother, but whose actions have gone to save many other children from the same fate.
Operation Whisper: The Capture of Soviet Spies Morris and Lona Cohen
Barnes Carr - 2016
On a hot afternoon in the autumn of 1950, a trusted colleague knocked at their door, held up a finger for silence, then began scribbling a note: Go now. Leave the lights on, walk out, don't look back. Born and raised in the Bronx and recruited to play football at Mississippi State, Morris Cohen fought for the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War and with the U.S. Army in World War II. He and his wife, Lona, were as American as football and fried chicken, but for one detail: they'd spent their entire adult lives stealing American military secrets for the Soviet Union. And not just any military secrets, but a complete working plan of the first atomic bomb, smuggled direct from Los Alamos to their Soviet handler in New York. Their associates Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who accomplished far less, had just been arrested, and the prosecutor wanted the death penalty. Did the Cohens wish to face the same fate? Federal agents were in the neighborhood, knocking on doors, getting close. So get out. Take nothing. Tell no one. In Operation Whisper, Barnes Carr tells the full, true story of the most effective Soviet spy couple in America, a pair who vanished under the FBI's nose only to turn up posing as rare book dealers in London, where they continued their atomic spying. The Cohens were talented, dedicated, worldly spies-an urbane, jet-set couple loyal to their service and their friends, and very good at their work. Most people they met seemed to think they represented the best of America. The Soviets certainly thought so.
Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case
Allen Weinstein - 1978
Hiss's defense was the most gripping story of its day, and the question of his guilt has remained an American enigma. Now, historian Allen Weinstein finally solves, once and for all, one of the great American mysteries. Weinstein also, for the first time ever, draws upon previously inaccessible information from Soviet archives. The result is an extraordinary book that leaves anyone who reads it with one inescapable conclusion: Alger Hiss was guilty.
Crossing the Line: Losing Your Mind as an Undercover Cop
Christian Plowman - 2013
When he finally achieved his ambition, becoming one of only a dozen full-time undercover officers, the reality of covert work turned his life into a nightmare.To catch criminals, Christian bought and sold drugs with taxpayers' money, was beaten up, arrested at gunpoint and barricaded in a pub by a gang of marauding travellers - all in a day's work. At one stage, he was running almost a dozen mobile phones to keep track of his different identities and had so many aliases that he nearly forgot who he was. He put his life on the line for the job but was to find that being the 'best of the best' wasn't all it was cracked up to be. The pressure became so intense that he even contemplated suicide.Crossing the Line is a visceral, gripping account of what it really takes to be an undercover cop, going behind the scenes to reveal the harsh realities of modern covert police work.
The Spy's Son: The True Story of the Highest-Ranking CIA Officer Ever Convicted of Espionage and the Son He Trained to Spy for Russia
Bryan Denson - 2015
. . and it’s all true." —Robert Lindsey, author of The Falcon and the SnowmanInvestigative reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist Bryan Denson tells the riveting story of the Nicholsons—father and son co-conspirators who deceived their country by selling national secrets to Russia.Jim Nicholson was one of the CIA's top veteran case officers. By day, he taught spycraft at the CIA's clandestine training center, The Farm. By night, he was a minivan-driving single father racing home to have dinner with his kids. But Nicholson led a double life. For more than two years, he had met covertly with agents of Russia's foreign intelligence service and turned over troves of classified documents. In 1997, Nicholson became the highest ranking CIA officer ever convicted of espionage. But his duplicity didn’t stop there. While behind the bars of a federal prison, the former mole systematically groomed the one person he trusted most to serve as his stand-in: his youngest son, Nathan. When asked to smuggle messages out of prison to Russian contacts, Nathan saw an opportunity to not only make something of himself but to make his father proud.
Kennedy
Brett Harper - 2015
Kennedy glimmers through history as the young, idealistic president whose Camelot administration promised a new dawn for America. He did a great deal in his thousand-day presidency, from embracing civil rights and starting the Peace Corps to negotiating a nuclear test ban and facing down the Soviets on the brink of nuclear war. But fifty years after he was murdered, it's hard to separate the real JFK, with all his faults, from the many myths about him. This is his story - and why he mattered.
The Last Englishman: The Double Life Of Arthur Ransome
Roland Chambers - 2009
Rowling is today: author of a series of childrens books which shaped the imagination of a generation. Rooted in the heyday of the British Empire, Swallows and Amazons and its sequels described a nostalgic Utopia.Yet before that, Arthur Ransome, famous for different reasons. Between 1917 and 1924, as Russian correspondent for the Daily News and Manchester Guardian, he was an uncritical apologist for the Bolshevik regime, with unique access to the revolutionary leaders. As the Red Army engaged with an Allied invasion of Russia, Ransome was conducting a love affair with Evgenia Shelepina, private secretary to Leon Trotsky, then Soviet Commissar for War. As the intimate friend of Karl Radek, the Bolshevik Chief of Propaganda, he denied the Red Terror and compared Lenin to Oliver Cromwell. No English journalist was considered more controversial, or more damaging to British security. This is a fascinating, often chilling revision of an English icon through the most formative decade of the twentieth century.
Life of Brine
Phil Jarratt - 2017
Jarratt, who has often courted controversy in his long career as a journalist, editor and documentarian, pulls no punches as he rides an exhilarating wave of nostalgia from the Sixties up until now, through the heady days of drugs, alcohol and excess from Bali to Biarritz, Morocco to Malibu, and other exotic locations in between. Filled with the carefree, sometimes reckless enthusiasm of youth, yet balanced by reflection and insight, this is a book that will be devoured by surfers young and old, and by free spirits of all kinds and all ages. About the authorPhil Jarratt has worked in surf publishing and the surf industry for more than forty years, and is regarded as one of the sport’s foremost authorities. The editor of Tracks and Australian Surfer’s Journal and an associate editor of Surfer, Phil has received the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame Media Award four times and has won numerous other awards for his work. He has authored thirty-five books including award-winning surf histories and bestselling biographies.
The Aviator: A Novel of the Sino-American War (The Aviator: Stories of Future Wars Book 1)
Craig DiLouie - 2021
The Assassin's Betrayal
Auston King - 2020
A trained killer. A spy. He'd done bad things, for bad people.He knew what he was. He was a monster.When he was given a target, he'd execute his orders with little prejudice.Clinical efficiency was all that mattered.But his current mission finds himself confronted with the past. And like a bad hangover, the painful memories of what he'd done to get to where he is have left him weak and vulnerable.The only the way out, is to go through hell.He has to kill the woman he loves.If he doesn't, Washington, D.C. will go up in flames.The Assassin's Betrayal is Auston King's shocking debut thriller. It's raw, gritty, and full of twists and turns that will shock you.
Albert Einstein: Extraordinary Life Lessons That Will Change Your Life Forever (Inspirational Books)
Jamie Cooper - 2015
It’s nearly impossible because without the right connections, a good early education, and financial wealth to back you up, you might as well sit on the sidelines and fold your arms. When you have nothing going for you, and/or obligations to tend to, shackling you to the ground (money doesn’t grow on trees), you might not even see the point in starting, because creating a life of dreams must surely be for the 1%. If you think creating a more desired life is costly, you are right - it’s not easy. It requires dedication and a willingness to give up short-term satisfaction, and that means being prepared to give some of your happiness away for the greater, long-term good. However, if that all sounds a bit too much – why would you want to sacrifice your happiness? – then you need to take a step back and foresee a different kind of outcome that will inevitably unfold if you take the "road most taken": a future of unrealized potential; an underlying, constant inner-discomfort; and, the most horrid of all, regret. And what is the "road most taken"? It’s the easy road out. It’s the road most people take in life, the one that appears comfortable and easy, but is actually laden with nightmares and discomfort. If you’re ignoring your dreams to pursue something more acceptable or less risky, you are taking the road most taken.Fortunately, there are things that you can do in life that will immediately snap you back to what is important: you and your magnificent potential. What is perhaps the most powerful tool of all that will help you get back on track? It’s learning from people who have gone beyond what is humanly thought possible, like Albert Einstein, a man who once thought he was worthless (who wrote a letter to his parents telling them that he should never have been born, because he was useless), but who ended up being a legend among people, an inspiration who unlocked the very secrets of life. There is so much love, power, and potential in you, and you don’t even realize it. However, you can bring these things out in yourself by studying the great. When you study great leaders, like Albert Einstein, you are essentially absorbing their wisdom, something that will radically change your life not years from now, but now, the moment you start reading the coming chapters. What follows are the greatest life lessons from Albert Einstein, wisdom that can easily be applied to your own life. They were carefully selected and dissected in meaning to help you gain the most out of them. There is a powerful reason why Albert Einstein was so great: he was human, and he realized it.Scroll up and grab your copy today.