Sleeper Agent: The Atomic Spy in America Who Got Away

Aficionados of true spy and espionage stories will enjoy this thrilling audiobook about George Koval, the ultimate Soviet sleeper agent. Iowa-born and U.S. Army–trained, Koval was a GRU intelligence officer working on the atomic bomb project. Hagedorn unpacks how he was embedded in the States in the 1940s as an electrical engineer with top secret clearance working on the Manhattan Project and how he stole a copy of those plans, left the United States on a ruse, gave them to his Soviet counterparts, and never returned to America. His actions remained unknown by the U.S. government for decades. Laural Merlington’s narration is generally very effective. She remains distant, clinical, calm, and objective in her demeanor throughout; she verges on mechanical, sounding as if she is an AI in a few places. Her enunciation is crisp and clear, with correct pronunciation of Russian names and words.