The Spy Who Spoke Porpoise

By: Philip Wylie

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

A circus performer turned superspy is caught up in a Cold War web of conspiracy and death when the body of a murdered CIA agent is discovered in a Hawaiian marine park. By any definition, Ringling Wallenda Grove is an extraordinary man. The son of expatriate Russian former circus owners, he mastered the arts of acrobatics, animal training, and magic at a young age; distinguished himself as an officer in World War II; and went on to amass a fortune of several million dollars before going into semiretirement. But there is another side to this man that few know about. R. W. Grove is a master spy, having honed his trade as a postwar intelligence agent with the OSS. Now the murder of a company agent, whose body was found floating among the aquatic animals in Honolulu's popular Sea Life Park, is pulling Grove back into the game. A deadly international conspiracy is afoot, involving the nation's most bitter and dangerous enemies, and it centers on a covert CIA operation code-named Zed - an undertaking so secretive that even the president can know nothing about it. Renowned for his provocative, stunningly realized speculative fiction, Philip Wylie joined the ranks of John le Carré, Len Deighton, Robert Ludlum, and other masters of the espionage thriller when he first published The Spy Who Spoke Porpoise. Brimming with action, intrigue, and ingenious twists and turns, the novel brilliantly captures the fears, anxieties, paranoia, and rampant conspiracies that hallmarked the Cold War era.

©1969 Philip Wylie (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

a guilty pleasure

Due to the author's name, I have long wanted to try one of his books. A spy novel set in 1969, this book occasionally comes close to the cartoon character of Roger Moore's James Bond. The (almost too) good (to be true) guys do make minor mistakes, but they indulge in violence for its own sake, nor do they seem to carry grudges. The bad guys do seem to take a thrill from the violence committed and/or are enamored of themselves that they fail to see ludicrous their behavior can be. normally such characters would not really interest me, but I confess that I swallowed most of the plot hook, line, and sinker.a lot of (bizarre) action did keep my attention. my definition of a guilty pleasure.

liked it but . . .

I enjoyed the characters, once I could distinguish. narrator good but voice kept same changing most male characters. storyline excellent if a bit convoluted. one note, Cuba is not a part of Latin America, it is a part of the Caribbean. the culture and people are very different in the islands.