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Book of the Week

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Serialised book readings, featuring works from various genres

Serialised book readings, featuring works of non-fiction, biography, autobiography, travel, diaries, essays, humour and history

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Simon Russell Beale

David Roper

Ben Macintyre

Book of the Week: Ben Macintyre - A Spy Among Friends: Episode 3

Factual: Crime & Justice

A Spy Among Friends

Episode 3

Ben Macintyre - A Spy Among Friends

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, Ben Macintyre - A Spy Among Friends, Episode 3

Talk of a Third Man grows louder, and the suspicion around Kim Philby grows stronger.

Burgess and Maclean have fled to Moscow and the spotlight turns to Philby as a third suspect. Read by Simon Russell Beale.

With access to newly released MI5 files and previously unseen family papers, and with the cooperation of former officers of MI6 and the CIA, author Ben Macintyre unlocks the last great secret of the Cold War.

Kim Philby was the most notorious British defector and Soviet mole in history. Agent, double agent, traitor and enigma, he betrayed every secret of Allied operations to the Russians in the early years of the Cold War. Philby's two closest friends in the intelligence world, Nicholas Elliott of MI6 and James
Jesus Angleton the CIA intelligence chief, thought they knew Philby better than anyone - only to discover they had not known him at all.

This is a story of intimate duplicity; of loyalty, trust and treachery, class and conscience; of an ideological battle waged by men with cut-glass accents and well-made suits in the comfortable clubs and restaurants of London and Washington; of male friendships forged, and then systematically betrayed.

In today's episode, who is "The Third Man"? When Burgess and Maclean break for Moscow fear and paranoia grip MI6. In the third episode of A Spy Among Friends the spotlight shines on Kim Philby

Reader: Simon Russell Beale

Producer: David Roper
A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.

Book of the Week: Ben Macintyre - A Spy Among Friends

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Ben Macintyre tells the story of notorious British defector and Soviet mole Kim Philby

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