Yesterdays Spy, Tom Bradby
Yesterdays Spy, Tom Bradby
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Yesterday's Spy

Author: Tom Bradby

Narrator: George Weightman

Unabridged: 9 hr 32 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 08/02/2022


Synopsis

From British journalist and bestselling author Tom Bradby, Yesterday’s Spy is a brilliantly plotted historical espionage novel about a father searching for his disappeared son against the backdrop of the 1953 coup in Tehran

London, 1953. Harry Tower is a recently widowed and world-weary British spy, out of favor and down on his luck. After a night spent drinking away his sorrows, he is awakened by a phone call with chilling news. His estranged son Sean has
gone missing in Tehran after writing a damning article about the involvement of government officials in the opium trade. Harry springs to action, eager to reunite with his son and atone for past wrongs.

When he arrives in Tehran, a city roiling with political dissatisfaction and on the brink of a historic coup, Harry joins forces with Sean’s Iranian girlfriend, Shahnaz—seemingly the only other person interested in finding the disappeared journalist.

Harry’s career as a spy soon proves perfect training for this much more personal mission as American, British, Iranian, and French players flit in and out of the scene. But as the first attempt at a coup in the city fails and foreign powers jockey
for oil, money, and influence, Sean’s disappearance takes on a more sinister tone. Was he really taken in retribution for his reporting, or is this an attempt to silence a globally significant revelation he was preparing to make?

Or, most terrifyingly, does Sean’s disappearance have nothing to do with him at all? Has Harry’s past caught up to them?

Reviews

Goodreads review by Ches on October 14, 2018

This intrigued me from the start. Is Steve a hero gone bad, or is he still a hero? The story is set in the nineteen-seventies. Friendships from WW2 are strong, but perhaps people can change. The first-person narrator steers a dangerous path between the underworld and the Secret Service. At times, I......more

Goodreads review by Trevor on January 05, 2025

So, a few notes: I ordered this online, in the Penguin Modern Classics edition, and it got lost in the mail. No harm, no foul, these things happen, and it wouldn't surprise me if it turned up months later (as I had a similar lost-in-the-mail experience with "Tom Jones" a few years back, and it event......more

Goodreads review by Simon on May 30, 2017

Originally published on my blog here in June 2004. The plots of a fair proportion of the novels Deighton has set contemporary to the date of writing involve something left over from the Second World War. There is an obvious reason why this happens, other than that the Cold War itself could be viewed......more

Goodreads review by David on July 18, 2018

Mid-period Deighton, still using an anonymous spy as his protagonist (although here going by his wartime cover of Charlie), Yesterday's Spy is a solid espionage novel, by turns melancholy, bitter and action-packed. Charlie is tasked with investigating his old comrade, the splendidly named Steve Champ......more

Goodreads review by John on June 02, 2020

It is a pacier novel than some of Deighton's previous books and the storyline is compelling, if not to the same level as Funeral in Berlin and The Ipcress File. The characters are both interesting and flawed. The main protagonist, in common with Deighton's previous novels, appears to be writing from......more