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  • The Spy Who Couldn't Spell

  • A Dyslexic Traitor, an Unbreakable Code, and the FBI's Hunt for America's Stolen Secrets
  • By: Yudhijit Bhattacharjee
  • Narrated by: Robert Fass
  • Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (16 ratings)

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The Spy Who Couldn't Spell

By: Yudhijit Bhattacharjee
Narrated by: Robert Fass
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Summary

The thrilling, true-life account of the FBI's hunt for ingenious traitor Brian Regan - known as the Spy Who Couldn't Spell.

Before Edward Snowden's infamous data breach, the largest theft of government secrets was committed by an ingenious traitor whose intricate espionage scheme and complex system of coded messages were made even more baffling by his dyslexia. His name is Brian Regan, but he came to be known as the Spy Who Couldn't Spell.

In December of 2000, FBI special agent Steven Carr of the bureau's Washington, DC, office received a package from FBI New York: a series of coded letters from an anonymous sender to the Libyan consulate, offering to sell classified US intelligence. The offer, and the threat, were all too real. A self-proclaimed CIA analyst with top secret clearance had information about US reconnaissance satellites, air defense systems, weapons depots, munitions factories, and underground bunkers throughout the Middle East.

Rooting out the traitor would not be easy, but certain clues suggested a government agent with a military background, a family, and a dire need for money. Leading a diligent team of investigators and code breakers, Carr spent years hunting down a dangerous spy and his cache of stolen secrets.

In this fast-paced true-life spy thriller, Yudhijit Bhattacharjee reveals how the FBI unraveled Regan's strange web of codes to build a case against a man who nearly collapsed America's military security.

©2016 Yudhijit Bhattacharjee (P)2016 Penguin Audio
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Critic reviews

"An excellent, highly engrossing account of the search for a man who was cunning, avaricious - and a dreadful speller....It is a pleasure to be in the hands of a writer who so skillfully weaves his assiduous research into polished prose....The Spy Who Couldn’t Spell presents an estimable, thoroughly enjoyable overview of espionage in the digital age.” (The Wall Street Journal)

“Yudhijit Bhattacharjee has brought to light an intriguing tale of espionage and betrayal - a tale filled with twists and turns and powerful revelations.” (David Grann, New York Times best-selling author of The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon)

“Brian Regan was an all too human spy, a trailblazer in the digital age - a mole who managed to squirrel away thousands of classified documents - and a brilliant, dyslexic cryptologist who was caught in part because he couldn’t spell. Yudhijit Bhattacharjee has penetrated the FBI and other parts of the intelligence community to write this fantastic true story - a captivating, gracefully-written narrative that is destined to become a classic in the history of code-breaking.” (Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames)

What listeners say about The Spy Who Couldn't Spell

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The Dyslexic Syp !

Treachery is an evil crime which has serious and often incalculable consequences. In my country (UK), the Cambridge Five and others did it for political reasons; and foolishly, the political system they backed (communism) failed in the Soviet Union and is now almost extinct. Brian Regan attempted to betray his country (USA) by stealing and passing on top secret information, mainly of the satellite variety, to countries such as Libya and Iraq in the late 1990s/early 2000s. Even the Libyans did not trust him ! He also appeared to betray his country for possibly the worst possible reason: money. He was caught and sentenced to life imprisonment. Brian was dyslexic which adds an unusual angle to this true story.

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