The Emperor's Coloured Coat
The Otto Prohaska Novels, Book 2
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Narrated by:
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Nigel Patterson
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By:
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John Biggins
About this listen
Early in the year 1912, the recently-promoted Lieutenant Ottokar Prohaska finds himself stuck as a gunnery officer aboard a battleship mostly moored in harbor. He answers a War Ministry advertisement for training as a naval air pilot, but he soon finds himself appointed aide-de-camp for aviation to the appalling, boorish, near-insane Austro-Hungarian heir-apparent: the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
After breaking a leg in a flying accident, Prohaska is relieved of his duties, and upon his recovery, he is posted to a river gunboat on the Danube. After an ill-considered liaison with a Polish opera singer, he flees her vengeful husband into Serbian territory. There, a case of mistaken identity enmeshes him in a Serbian anarchist plot to kill the Austro-Hungarian chief of staff with a small diversionary operation in the town of Sarajevo - the assassination of the Archduke.
His warnings of the assassination plot are mysteriously disregarded by Austrian officials, and Prohaska is whisked off to Shanghai aboard an Austrian liner, where he arrives just in time for the outbreak of World War One. Plenty more outlandish adventures await him: an insider's view of the Japanese siege of a German colony, an escape aboard a Chinese junk, and instruction in the art of flat-earth marine navigation. Finally, Prohaska must come to grips with the decision, by a not-very-bright commandant of a Turkish fort in the Arabian desert, that he should be hanged as a spy.
With irony, wit, historical accuracy, and telling detail, Biggins brings alive a time and place that spawned two World Wars, the Cold War, and the Balkan wars of the late 20th century.
©1992 John Biggins (P)2017 McBooks Press, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Nice Travelogue
- By J. S. Koehler on 01-28-06
By: Simon Winchester
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Operation Kronstadt
- The Greatest True Tale of Espionage to Come Out of the Early Years of MI6
- By: Harry Ferguson
- Narrated by: Gideon Emery
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Part Blackhawk Down, part The Riddle of the Sands, former MI6 officer Harry Ferguson has written an extraordinarily gripping non-fiction thriller. Operation Kronstadt not only reveals the early days of intelligence services but also uncovers a truly dramatic story from the Russian Revolution involving a daring rescue attempt and a "mission impossible" against the best defended naval target in Russia.
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Gripping Story
- By Anonymous User on 06-21-10
By: Harry Ferguson
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Stars & Stripes Forever
- A Novel of Alternate History
- By: Harry Harrison
- Narrated by: Robin Bloodworth
- Length: 12 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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In a war room in Washington, William Tecumseh Sherman and General Robert E. Lee huddle together and plan their next, joint military operation. In the jungles of Mexico, Ulysses S. Grant is locked in brutal combat with the best of the British Army. And in the heart of the new American South a fragile peace is threatened...
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Terrific alternate history
- By Michael Jacobi on 10-02-15
By: Harry Harrison
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Sword of Honor
- By: Evelyn Waugh
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 24 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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This trilogy about World War II, largely based on his own experiences as an army officer, is the crowning achievement of Evelyn Waugh's career. Its central character is Guy Crouchback, head of an ancient but decayed Catholic family, who at first discovers new purpose in the challenge to defend Christian values against Nazi barbarism, but then gradually finds the complexities and cruelties of war too much for him.
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At least one chapter missing
- By Sviatoslav on 08-17-15
By: Evelyn Waugh
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When Eight Bells Toll
- By: Alistair MacLean
- Narrated by: Jonathan Oliver
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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From the acclaimed master of action and suspense. The all-time classic. Millions of pounds in gold bullion are being pirated in the Irish Sea. Investigations by the British Secret Service, and a sixth sense, have bought Philip Calvert to a bleak, lonely bay in the Western Highlands. But the sleepy atmosphere of Torbay is deceptive. The place is the focal point of many mysterious disappearances. Even the unimaginative Highland Police Sergeant seems to be acting a part. But why?
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My Favorite Thriller Writer
- By Carl on 09-27-17
By: Alistair MacLean
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Black Mischief
- By: Evelyn Waugh
- Narrated by: Michael Maloney
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Black Mischief, Waugh's third novel, helped to establish his reputation as a master satirist. Set on the fictional African island of Azania, the novel chronicles the efforts of Emperor Seth, assisted by the Englishman Basil Seal, to modernize his kingdom. Profound hilarity ensues from the issuance of homemade currency, the staging of a "Birth Control Gala", the rightful ruler's demise at his own rather long and tiring coronation ceremonies, and a good deal more mischief.
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Raucous, Not Racist
- By John on 10-01-16
By: Evelyn Waugh
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Final Blackout
- By: L. Ron Hubbard
- Narrated by: Roddy McDowall
- Length: 2 hrs and 56 mins
- Abridged
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The world is in the throes of economic decay and at the mercy of terrorists. Across this post-apocalyptic landscape marches one extraordinary soldier and his band of brothers. In a novel as disturbingly plausible as it is powerfully gripping, they are headed into a battle in which they will have to come to grips with the power of technology and the true price of freedom.
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Robert's Review
- By Robert the Dispatcher on 06-22-15
By: L. Ron Hubbard
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Hannay: His 5 Adventures
- By: John Buchan
- Narrated by: Graham Scott
- Length: 49 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Thirty-Nine Steps, Hannay struggles to thwart an assassination plot designed to hasten war between Britain and Germany. Later he is plucked from the trenches first, in Greenmantle, to frustrate a plot to ferment an uprising in the Islamic world; and then, in Mr. Standfast, to undertake a vital secret mission against a German spy ring operating among pacifist elements in England. After the war, his adventures continue in The Three Hostages; and then in The Island of Sheep, when an old oath to protect the son of a friend from his days in Africa draws him into new danger.
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Values of a bygone era
- By Barbara on 03-16-24
By: John Buchan
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Sea of Poppies
- Ibis Trilogy, Book 1
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 18 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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At the heart of this vibrant saga is an immense ship, the Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean, its purpose to fight China's vicious 19th-century Opium Wars. As for the crew, they are a motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts.
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ignorance may be bliss
- By Evelyn M Kloepper on 07-27-09
By: Amitav Ghosh
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The Daughters of Mars
- By: Tom Keneally
- Narrated by: Jane Nolan
- Length: 18 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Naomi and Sally Durance are daughters of a dairy farmer from the Macleay Valley. Bound together in complicity by what they consider a crime, when the Great War begins in 1914 they hope to submerge their guilt by leaving for Europe to nurse the tides of young wounded. They head for the Dardanelles on the hospital ship Archimedes. Their education in medicine, valour, and human degradation continues on the Greek island of Lemnos, then on the Western Front. Here, new outrages - gas, shell-shock - present themselves.
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Interesting WWI novel with an Australian bent
- By Sarah Gamp on 03-09-13
By: Tom Keneally
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Ramage
- The Lord Ramage Novels, Book 1
- By: Dudley Pope
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In a daring foray, under the very nose of the French Mediterranean fleet, Lieutenant Lord Nicholas Ramage is to sail his tiny cutter close in to the Italian shore and rescue a party of stranded aristocrats from Napoleon's fast-advancing army.
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Engaging
- By Jean on 10-04-14
By: Dudley Pope
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The Winds of War
- By: Herman Wouk
- Narrated by: Kevin Pariseau
- Length: 45 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Herman Wouk's sweeping epic of World War II stands as the crowning achievement of one of America's most celebrated storytellers. Like no other books about the war, Wouk's spellbinding narrative captures the tide of global events - and all the drama, romance, heroism, and tragedy of World War II - as it immerses us in the lives of a single American family drawn into the very center of the war's maelstrom.
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A Masterpiece
- By Robert on 05-24-13
By: Herman Wouk
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The Sea Wolf
- By: Jack London
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Wealthy ne'er-do-well Humphrey Van Weyden is a castaway who is put to work on the schooner Ghost, run by brutal Wolf Larsen. Toughened by life at sea, Humphrey develops the strength to protect another castaway, Maud Brewster, and stand up to the increasingly deranged Larsen. Experience the crashing, relentless power of the sea through this compelling story, made hauntingly immediate by author London's vivid prose.
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Great entertainment
- By Ross on 05-31-03
By: Jack London
What listeners say about The Emperor's Coloured Coat
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- B. Jobe
- 04-07-19
These books are great fun
I really get a kick out of these books and the character. Really well researched novels that have a light tone and discuss a part of history that tends to get little attention but yet is very interesting when looked at through the lens that Biggins creates.
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-30-18
Great second part of the Otto Prohaska story!
While it may not be on par with the Superstar Aubrey-Maturin series, it's as close as you'll find set in the days prior to WW1. also the narrator is fantastic.
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