In the Enemy's House: The Secret Saga of the FBI Agent and the Code Breaker Who Caught the Russian Spies

Written by Howard Blum

Narrated by David Colacci

The New York Times bestselling author of Dark Invasion and The Last Goodnight once again illuminates the lives of little-known individuals who played a significant role in America’s history as he chronicles the incredible true story of a critical, recently declassified counterintelligence mission and two remarkable agents whose story has been called ""the greatest secret of the Cold War.""

In 1946, genius linguist and codebreaker Meredith Gardner discovered that the KGB was running an extensive network of strategically placed spies inside the United States, whose goal was to infiltrate American intelligence and steal the nation’s military and atomic secrets. Over the course of the next decade, he and young FBI supervisor Bob Lamphere worked together on Venona, a top-secret mission to uncover the Soviet agents and protect the Holy Grail of Cold War espionage—the atomic bomb.

Opposites in nearly every way, Lamphere and Gardner relentlessly followed a trail of clues that helped them identify and take down these Soviet agents one by one, including Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. But at the center of this spy ring, seemingly beyond the American agents’ grasp, was the mysterious master spy who pulled the strings of the KGB’s extensive campaign, dubbed Operation Enormoz by Russian Intelligence headquarters. Lamphere and Gardner began to suspect that a mole buried deep in the American intelligence community was feeding Moscow Center information on Venona. They raced to unmask the traitor and prevent the Soviets from fulfilling Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s threat: ""We shall bury you!""

A breathtaking chapter of American history and a page-turning mystery that plays out against the tense, life-and-death gamesmanship of the Cold War, this twisting thriller begins at the end of World War II and leads all the way to the execution of the Rosenbergs—a result that haunted both Gardner and Lamphere to the end of their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Feb 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9780062798657

Howard Blum

With the publication more than fifty years ago of the acclaimed Wanted! The Search for Nazis in America, Howard Blum, a former investigative reporter for the New York Times, established himself as a bestselling author of carefully reported and page-turning nonfiction works. Among his many bestsellers are American Lightning, Dark Invasion, The Last Goodnight, and The Spy Who Knew Too Much. Several of his books are being developed as films, including When the Night Comes Falling, which is being produced as a dramatic series by Village Roadshow Productions. The father of three adult children, he divides his time between a small town in Connecticut and East Hampton, New York.

Reviews for In the Enemy's House

[Jane McAdory · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

On the edge of my seat the entire time I read this book...and it is a true story! The time and trouble and worry and concern of the agents is remarkable! Everything they face is like a multi-layered puzzle! Their ability to connect people and events and situations is amazing...thank goodness we have them!

[dojohns · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an excellent book with lots of bibliography background info. In the prologue, I highly recommend it.

[jill.mackin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A riveting account of the hunt for, and capture of, the Rosenberg spy ring, also know as the Venona Project.

[ikeman100 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very detailed book. If you are interested in the ATOMIC spies working in the US during and after WWII, this is an important book. It goes into great detail about the recently declassified VENONA files and the people who caught the spies. I will be looking for other books by this author.

[marshapetry · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book didn't have the holding power as some of Blums works. i really like the author but this book, well, it just maybe was too disjointed for an audio book. Still worth reading but there are lots of lost thoughts, dead ends, just boring add-ons about the main guy.

[ericcostello-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another story of counter-intelligence from Blum; he's also the author of "Dark Invader," his story of World War I espionage. Here, we have a combination of World War II/Cold War espionage, told from the point of view of an FBI agent and his Army Security Agency ("Arlington Hall") colleague, as they work together with brain power and shoe leather to crack Russian codes, and eventually bring down the Rosenberg atomic spy ring. Interestingly, both of the protagonists believed that Ethel Rosenberg should not have been executed. A well-told story, though I have some issues with what I think are recreated situations and dialogue, no matter how well-grounded they are. An interesting counterpart to books on codebreaking by David Kahn, and some of the recent books on the Venona decrypts. Generally recommended.