The Matchmaker
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Narrated by:
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Jeff Harding
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By:
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Paul Vidich
About this listen
In the vein of Graham Greene and John le Carré, The Matchmaker delivers a chilling Cold War spy story set in West Berlin, where an American woman targeted by the Stasi must confront the truth behind her German husband's mysterious disappearance.
Berlin, 1989. Protests across East Germany threaten the Iron Curtain, and communism is the ill man of Europe.
Anne Simpson, an American who works as a translator at the Joint Operations Refugee Committee, thinks she is in a normal marriage with a charming East German. But then her husband disappears, and the CIA and Western German intelligence arrive at her door.
Nothing about her marriage is as it seems. She had been targeted by the Matchmaker - a high-level East German counterintelligence officer - who runs a network of Stasi agents. These agents are his 'Romeos' who marry vulnerable women in West Berlin to provide them with cover as they report back to the Matchmaker. Anne has been married to a spy, and now he has disappeared and is presumably dead.
The CIA are desperate to find the Matchmaker because of his close ties to the KGB. They believe he can establish the truth about a high-ranking Soviet defector. They need Anne because she's the only person who has seen his face - from a photograph that her husband mistakenly left out in his office - and she is the CIA's best chance to identify him before the Matchmaker escapes to Moscow. Time is running out as the Berlin Wall falls and chaos engulfs East Germany.
But what if Anne's husband is not dead? And what if Anne has her own motives for finding the Matchmaker to deliver a different type of justice?
©2022 Paul Vidich (P)2022 W. F. Howes LtdCritic reviews
"A richly detailed work of investigative crime writing perfect for fans of procedurals and spy fiction alike." (LitHub)
“One of the foremost espionage novelists working today.” (Crimereads)
"Edgy. At first, The Mercenary seems an outstanding example of a familiar sort of spy saga. But there's more to Alek Garin than most people know." (Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal)
What listeners say about The Matchmaker
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Performance
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- Mrs
- 30-09-24
Dreadful narration
The story was probably good but the reader read as if it was a list of statements raising the inflection at the end of every sentence. Really couldn’t concentrate on the story
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- Hi Ho Silver
- 29-06-24
All the right notes, but not in an expected order
Well narrated complex tale of a time when Germany was split by a wall and a gulf in lifestyles and idealogies. Where husband of Ann Stefan paid his piper and handlers on his "Romeo" mission, whilst tuning pianos and skating in and out of espionage and bigamy. Well written, with sardonic humour unravelling the hubris of the husband in his actions and activities in the Brian Freemantle'esque plot and sub plot.
Ann is a target played initally by Stefan, then by the CIA who tunes her own skills to save her life and sanity. Satisfying ending.
VERY ENJOYABLE (I had no issues with the pronunciations or narration)
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- Terry Coughlan.
- 10-01-24
The narration was awful
The story was good but was ruined by the awful narration. The reader was little better than ai and seemed to have little understanding of the meaning of inflection when reading a story. Pity.
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1 person found this helpful