The Torqued Man - Peter Mann

Written by Peter Mann
Read by John Lee
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps

Publisher: HarperAudio
Release date: January 11, 2022
Duration: 11:21:15

Berlin—September, 1945. Two manuscripts are found in rubble, each one narrating conflicting versions of the life of an Irish spy during the war.

One of them is the journal of a German military intelligence officer and an anti-Nazi cowed into silence named Adrian de Groot, charting his relationship with his agent, friend, and sometimes lover, an Irishman named Frank Pike. In De Groot’s narrative, Pike is a charismatic IRA fighter sprung from prison in Spain to assist with the planned German invasion of Britain, but who never gets the chance to consummate his deal with the devil.

Meanwhile, the other manuscript gives a very different account of the Irishman’s doings in the Reich. Assuming the alter ego of the Celtic hero Finn McCool, Pike appears here as the ultimate Allied saboteur. His mission: an assassination campaign of high-ranking Nazi doctors, culminating in the killing of Hitler’s personal physician.
The two manuscripts spiral around each other, leaving only the reader to know the full truth of Pike and De Groot’s relationship, their ultimate loyalties, and their efforts to resist the fascist reality in which they are caught.

“John Lee’s thoroughly entertaining performance is so deft that listeners may take for granted what he’s pulling off: shifting between two distinct points of view and worlds while keeping all the main and secondary characters unique and recognizable. Mann’s spy novel weaves two stories and two protagonists. In the time of the Third Reich, Adrien de Groot is a German government handler; Frank Pike is an Irish spy. They come to rely on each other, but their motivations for doing so are mysterious. Lee gives commanding portrayals of the erudite de Groot and the man-of-action Pike. In doing so, he consistently captures the German’s cerebral wit and the Irishman’s outlandish bravado.”—Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award