BEN MACINTYRE is a writer-at-large for The Times of London and the bestselling author of A Spy Among Friends, Double Cross, Operation Mincemeat, Agent Zigzag, The Napoleon of Crime, and Forgotten Fatherland, among other books. Macintyre has also written and presented BBC documentaries of the wartime espionage trilogy.
Trained as a German spy, -Eddie Chapman was dropped into wartime Britain by parachute and promptly became a double agent. Macintyre, a London Times associate editor, helps tell his story with nearly 2000 pages of recently declassified material. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
London Times associate editor Macintyre (The Man Who Would Be King) adroitly dissects the enigmatic World War II British double agent Eddie Chapman in this intriguing and balanced biography. Giving "little thought" to the morality of his decision, Chapman offered to work as a spy for the Germans in 1940 after his release from an English prison in the Channel Islands, then occupied by the Germans. After undergoing German military intelligence training, Chapman parachuted into England in December 1942 with instructions to sabotage a De Havilland aircraft factory, but he surrendered after landing safely. Doubled by MI5 (the security service responsible for counterespionage), Chapman was used "to feed vital disinformation to the enemy" and was one of the few double agents "to delude their German handlers until the end of the war." Meticulously researched-relying extensively on recently released wartime files of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service-Macintyre's biography often reads like a spy thriller. In the end, the author concludes that Chapman "repeatedly risked his life... [and] provided invaluable intelligence," but "it was never clear whether he was on the side of the angels or the devils." Of the two Zigzag biographies this fall (the other, by Nicholas Booth, is reviewed below), this is clearly superior. (Oct. 9) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
"Macintyre is the more graceful writer; Agent Zigzag has a
clarity and shape that make it the more fluid account... I would
give a personal nod to Macintyre's as the better book... A review
cannot possibly convey the sheer fun of this story... or the
fascinating moral complexities."
--New York Times Book Review
"[Agent Zigzag's] incredible wartime adventures, recounted in
Ben Macintyre's rollicking, spellbinding Agent Zigzag blend
the spy-versus-spy machinations of John le Carre with the high
farce of Evelyn Waugh."
--The New York Times "Chapman's story has been told in fragments
in the past, but only when MI5 declassified his files was it
possible to present it in all its richness and complexity.
Macintyre tells it to perfection, with endless insights into the
horror and absurdity of war....Eddie Chapman was a patriot, in his
fashion, and this excellent book finally does him justice."
--The Washington Post Book World "Fact sounds like fast-moving
fiction in this espionage saga of a man who was probably the most
improbable double agent to emerge in World War II. ... The author
has written an enormously fascinating book about an enormously
fascinating man. The late Eddie Chapman would have been delighted
to at last capture the limelight denied him by the restrictions of
his wartime profession. The question now is, who will make the
movie and who will play the lead? Too bad Errol Flynn is dead."
--Washington Times "[R]ichly descriptive, marvelously
illuminating, and just plain brilliant....One could not think of a
better subject for Macintyre's curious mind than the man whom
British intelligence dubbed Agent Zigzag in December 1942.... [A]
plot - impossible and pointless to summarize - that is as briskly
paced and suspenseful as any novel's. Macintyre's diligent research
and access to once-secret files combine here with his gift of
empathetic imagination and inspired re-creation. He writes with
brio and a festive spirit and has quite simply created a
masterpiece."
--The Boston Globe "Superb. Meticulously researched, splendidly
told, immensely entertaining and often very moving."
--John le Carre "Macintyre [relates] his compellingly cinematic spy
thriller with verve."
--Entertainment Weekly (an "EW Pick") "Agent
Zigzag is a true-history thriller, a real spy story superbly
written. It belongs to my favorite genre: the 'Friday night
book'-start it then, because you will want to stay with it
all weekend."
--Alan Furst "A portrait of a man who double-crossed not only the
Nazis, but just about every other principle and person he
encountered. In doing so, Eddie Chapman made all thriller writers'
jobs harder, because this spy tale trumps any fiction."
--Men's Journal "One of the most extraordinary stories of the
Second World War."
--William Boyd, The Sunday Telegraph "This is the most
amazing book, full of fascinating and hair-raising true-life
adventures...and beautifully told. For anyone interested in the
Second World War, spying, romance, skullduggery or the hidden
chambers of the human mind, it would be impossible to recommend it
too highly."
--The Mail on Sunday
"Speaking as a former MI6 officer, take it from me: there are very
few books which give you a genuine picture of what it feels like to
be a spy. This is one.... an enthralling war story."
--The Daily Express "Macintyre tells Chapman's tale in a
perfect pitch: with the Boys' Own thrills of Rider Haggard,
the verve of George MacDonald Fraser and Carl Hiassen's mordant
humor. . . . Hugely entertaining."
--The [London] Observer "If Ben Macintyre had presented this
story as a novel, it would have been denounced as far too unlikely:
yet every word of it is true. Moreover he has that enviable gift,
the inability to write a dull sentence. An enthralling book results
from the opening up of once deadly secret files."
--The Spectator "Splendidly vivid. . . . There are endless
delightful twists to the tale."
--Max Hastings, The [London] Sunday Times "Ben
Macintyre's rollicking, thriller-paced account...is a Boy's
Own adventure par excellence and a gripping psychological case
study of a man 'torn between patriotism and egotism.'"
--Time Out "Macintyre succeeds in bringing Chapman vividly
to life. It is unlikely that a more engaging study of espionage and
deception will be published this year."
--The Times "A preternaturally talented liar and pretty good
safecracker becomes a "spy prodigy" working concurrently for
Britain's MI5 and the Nazi's Abwehr. London Times newsman and
popular historian Macintyre (The Man Who Would be King: The
First American in Afghanistan, 2004, etc) reports on the life
and crimes of the late Eddie Chapman using interviews, newly
released secret files and, cautiously, the English spy's
less-reliable memoirs. Just launching his criminal career when
World War II began, the dashing adventurer was jailed in the
Channel Island Jersey. Volunteering his services to the occupying
Fatherland, he was taken to France and schooled in the dark arts of
espionage and the wicked devices of spies by the likes of convivial
headmaster Herr von Groening and spymaster Oberleutnant Praetorius.
Then the new German agent signed a formal espionage contract (under
which his expected rewards were to be subjected to income tax).
Dropped in England's green and pleasant land to commit sabotage, he
instead reported directly to His Majesty's secret service. There
they called their man 'Agent ZigZag.' The Germans had named him
"Fritzchen." Little Fritz, with the help of a magician, fooled his
Nazi handlers into believing he had wrecked an aircraft factory.
After a crafty return to Germany, he made another parachute drop
home to report on an anti-sub device and the accuracy of the new
V-1 flying bomb. The energetic adventurer from a lower stratum of
British society was being run by Oxbridge gentlemen and by
aristocrats of Deutschland at the same time. Or perhaps he was
running them. Adorning his exploits were several beautiful women
and an Iron Cross. It is a remarkable cloak-and-dagger procedural
and a fine tale of unusual wartime employment.... One of the great
true spy stories of World War II, vividly rendered."
--Kirkus
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