The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington

Jennet Conant

Sep 2008 · Highbridge Audio · Narrated by Simon Prebble

About this audiobook

Prior to the U.S. entering WWII, a small coterie of British spies in Washington, D.C., was formed. They called themselves the Baker Street Irregulars after the band of street urchins who were the eyes and ears of Sherlock Holmes in some Arthur Conan Doyle stories. This group constituted the very beginning of what would become MI6, the British version of the CIA, and they helped support the fledgling American intelligence service, known at the time as the OSS. Among them were writers Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, and the flamboyant Canadian industrialist turned professional saboteur William Stephenson, known by the code name "Intrepid," upon whom Fleming would later base his fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Richly detailed and carefully researched, Conant's narrative uses never-before-seen wartime letters, diaries, and interviews to create a fascinating, lively account of deceit, double dealing, and moral ambiguity—all in the name of victory.

About the author

Jennet Conant is the author of Man of the Hour and the New York Times bestsellers The Irregulars and Tuxedo Park. She has written for Vanity Fair, Esquire, GQ, Newsweek, and the New York Time.

One of AudioFile magazine's Golden Voices, Simon Prebble has received over twenty Earphones Awards and five Listen-Up Awards, and he has been a finalist fourteen times for an Audie Award. In 2006, Publishers Weekly named him Narrator of the Year, and he was named Booklist's 2010 Voice of Choice.