Audiobooks by Philip Augar

Browse audiobooks by Philip Augar, listen to samples and when you're ready head over to Audiobooks.com where you can get 3 FREE audiobooks on us

Agent Twister: The True Story Behind the Scandal that Gripped the Nation

He lived a double-life in the sixties Faked his own death in the seventies And retained his cover in the eighties A period thriller with powerful political and espionage themes, Agent Twister is the remarkable story behind one of the greatest scandals of the 1970s, told in full for the first time. If you think you know the true story of John Stonehouse - think again. It's November 1974 and John Stonehouse MP, once a star in Harold Wilson's Labour government, is missing in Miami, presumed drowned. His disappearance exposes the most lurid details of his life, including identity fraud, corporate corruption, a love triangle, blackmail, links with the Mafia and a decade-long career as a Soviet spy. The public are gripped by this story, happy to forget the strikes, IRA bombs and rising prices that are making daily life a misery. On Christmas Eve, Stonehouse is tracked down in Melbourne, Australia, where he is suspected of being that other missing Englishman, Lord Lucan. The comic absurdity of the story is offset by claims of a mental breakdown and a refusal to resign as an MP, even when he is extradited back to the UK and up on charges at the Old Bailey. For the first time, Agent Twister reveals the corporate crimes at the heart of Stonehouse's business empire, the true extent of his ten-year collusion with powerful Soviet proxies and the political consequences of his antics. It's a scandal greater than Profumo that lay buried for thirty years, with three prime ministers - Wilson, Callaghan and Thatcher - covering it up for very different reasons. Written by the makers of the Channel Four documentary The Spy Who Died Twice, Agent Twister is the first impartial account to put this extraordinary scandal in political context and reveal why John Stonehouse really disappeared.

Keely Winstone, Philip Augar (Author), Gareth Armstrong (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Bank That Lived a Little: Barclays in the Age of the Very Free Market

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Bank that Lived a Little by Phillip Augar, read by Jonathan Keeble. Based on unparalleled access to those involved, and told with compelling pace and drama, The Bank that Lived a Little is the story of one of the most familiar names on the British high street since Big Bang in 1986. Philip Augar describes in detail three decades of boardroom intrigue driven by ruthless ambition, grandiose dreams and a desire for wealth. It is a tale of a struggle for long-term supremacy between rival strategies and their adherents - one camp desperate for Barclays to join the top table of global banks, the other preferring a smaller domestic role more in keeping with the bank's sober Quaker origins. This strategic disagreement continues to divide opinion within Barclays, the City and beyond. This is an extraordinary corporate thriller, an inside chronicle of personal feuds, but much more besides: Augar shows that Barclays' experiences are a paradigm for Britain's social and economic life over thirty years, which saw the City move from the edge of the economy to its very centre. These decades created unprecedented prosperity for a tiny number, and made the reputations of governments and individuals but then left many of them in tatters. The leveraged society, the winner-takes-all mentality and our present era of austerity can all be traced to the influence of banks such as Barclays. Augar's book tells this rollercoaster story from the perspective of many of its participants - and also of those affected by the grip they came to have on Britain.

Philip Augar (Author), Jonathan Keeble (Narrator)

Audiobook

Reckless Brain Shot

In 1997 it seemed that things in the City could only get better. For ten years everything went according to plan. Buoyed by a strong pound and cheered on by an excitable media, the bankers became the heroes of the age. And then in the summer of 2007 everything began to collapse. Barely a year later the City was in tatters. Greed, guile and excess - this definitive insider's account charts an intoxicated decade and cogently reveals just how, and why, the City got it so badly wrong. BRAIN SHOT: The definitive insider's history of Britain's financial services sector over the last decade, by one of our leading City commentators.

Philip Augar (Author), Anthony Glennon (Narrator)

Audiobook