“Wildly improbable but entirely true . . . [a] compellingly cinematic spy thriller with verve.”—Entertainment Weekly
ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Entertainment Weekly
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post
Eddie Chapman was a charming criminal, a con man, and a philanderer. He was also one of the most remarkable double agents Britain has ever produced. In 1941, after training as German spy in occupied France, Chapman was parachuted into Britain with a revolver, a wireless, and a cyanide pill, with orders from the Abwehr to blow up an airplane factory. Instead, he contacted M15, the British Secret service, and for the next four years, Chapman worked as a double agent, a lone British spy at the heart of the German Secret Service. Inside the traitor was a man of loyalty; inside the villain was a hero. The problem for Chapman, his spymasters, and his lovers was to know where one persona ended and the other began. Based on recently declassified files, Agent Zigzag tells Chapman’s full story for the first time. It’s a gripping tale of loyalty, love, treachery, espionage, and the thin and shifting line between fidelity and betrayal.
“Wildly improbable but entirely true . . . [a] compellingly cinematic spy thriller with verve.”—Entertainment Weekly
ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Entertainment Weekly
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post
Eddie Chapman was a charming criminal, a con man, and a philanderer. He was also one of the most remarkable double agents Britain has ever produced. In 1941, after training as German spy in occupied France, Chapman was parachuted into Britain with a revolver, a wireless, and a cyanide pill, with orders from the Abwehr to blow up an airplane factory. Instead, he contacted M15, the British Secret service, and for the next four years, Chapman worked as a double agent, a lone British spy at the heart of the German Secret Service. Inside the traitor was a man of loyalty; inside the villain was a hero. The problem for Chapman, his spymasters, and his lovers was to know where one persona ended and the other began. Based on recently declassified files, Agent Zigzag tells Chapman’s full story for the first time. It’s a gripping tale of loyalty, love, treachery, espionage, and the thin and shifting line between fidelity and betrayal.
Reviews-
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July 30, 2007
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... 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. -
July 1, 2007
Edwin B. Burgess, a longtime LJ reviewer, is director of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Research Lib., Fort Leavenworth, KSself-helpBy Deborah Bigelow, Director, Leonia P.L., NJ Spiritual Living By Graham Christian Up-to-date Beliefs
We all want to be modern, even in the oratories and meditation centers; this season, "Library Journal" has seen an unusually insistent emphasis on the ultracontemporary, from a Protestant, everyday take on Ignatius of Loyola through the tangles of the web for contemporary Christian parents. We've come to terms with a pagan spirituality that negotiates a dozen traditions for the modern practitioner, as well as the reinvention of the Christian wisdom tradition for a 21st century and global outlook; we've seen the face of God in the crass cleverness of "Family Guy", read a philosopher's bloggings, and found redemption with Katharine Hepburn. With these latest titles, we find Joan Chittister as rewarding as always; among the newer authors, Greg Garrett and Bruno Barnhart prove to be especially worth watching. Barnhart, Bruno. The Future of Wisdom: Toward a Rebirth of Sapiential Christianity. Continuum. 2007. c.218p. ISBN 978-0-8264-1932-3. pap. $29.95. REL
Barnhart ("The Good Wine; Second Simplicity") is also a monk of the New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, CA. His new book, a substantial contribution toward the renewal of Christian spirituality, is rather more controversial than it might first appear, given Barnhart's good Catholic background. Barnhart seeks and desires no less than a wholehearted rediscovery and reinvigoration of the mystical wisdom tradition that was once a powerful component of Christian spirituality, both Western and Eastern. As he rightly points out, this tradition, which he allies with Aldous Huxley's "philosophia perennis", went into decline hand in hand with the overall decline of monastic orders, as Christianity became more public and congregational in its focus. He sees this moment of history as the "new dawn" of the wisdom tradition within Christianity; whether he is correct, and what role his learned and passionate advocacy will have, only time will tell. For most collections.
Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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September 1, 2007
Macintyres book is due in November. Its nearly 100 pages shorter than Booths and therefore moves at a brisker pace. The author, who first heard of Eddie when he read his obituary, relies mostly on official documents and private papers; whereas wife Betty Chapman was Booths collaborator, in Macintyres book, shes merely another source. The book is less personal than Booths; it reads more like an official history. It should also be noted that Macintyres book may be the more precise of the two: where Booth says Eddie hailed from the town of Burnup Field, Macintyre has it as Burnopfield, and it appears Macintyres spelling is the correct one. Similarly, Booth gives Eddies full name as Arnold Edward Chapman, while Macintyre has it as Edward Arnold Chapman; again, Macintyre appears to be correct. (Although it should be noted that these and other discrepancies in Booths book could be due to proofreading errors, and not mistakes of fact.)(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.) -
August 1, 2007
Sixty years after his incredible career as a double agent for the British, Eddie Chapman (191497) is the subject of two new books charting his experiences as one of World War II's most amazing spies. A cad, bounder, womanizer, safe cracker, and general bad guy before the war, Chapman was in a jail on the Channel Island of Jersey awaiting trial when the Germans took over the island and decided that he might make a good spy for them. After training in Germany, he was parachuted back into England to blow up an airfield. Instead, he immediately turned himself into the authorities and cooperated with MI5 (the UK's security intelligence agency) as one of England's double agents. The Germans were fooled into thinking that Chapman had indeed destroyed the airfield and rewarded him upon his return to Germany with the Iron Cross. Sent back to England, Chapman spent the latter part of the war giving incorrect information to the Germans about the success of their V-1 and V-2 rockets. He wired inaccurate coordinates to the German rocket launch crews who then sent their rockets to places of minor importance, causing little damage.Chapman wrote his own account in 1966, and a movie about his life titled "Triple Cross" appeared in 1967. Both Booth and Macintyre tap many of the same original sources, and both interviewed Chapman's widow for their respective accounts. Of the two accounts, Macintyre (associate editor, the London "Times; The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan") displays a surer hand on the overall historiography of wartime spying and probably has an edge. But Booth, whose career has been in broadcasting and journalism, is a skilled writer who manages to weave Chapman's complex story into a readable volume that both entertains and informs. Chapman's wartime exploits would be unbelievable were they not verified by many sober debriefing accounts residing in numerous MI5 files available to any who want to look. Large public and academic libraries should purchase if budgets allow, but if they need to choose, they should pick Macintyre. Chapman's is a most unusual story that will intrigue most readers.Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames
Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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New York Times Book Review
"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."
- The New York Times "[Agent Zigzag's] incredible wartime adventures, recounted in Ben Macintyre's rollicking, spellbinding Agent Zigzag blend the spy-versus-spy machinations of John le Carré with the high farce of Evelyn Waugh."
- The Washington Post Book World "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."
- Washington Times "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."
- The Boston Globe "[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."
- John le Carré "Superb. Meticulously researched, splendidly told, immensely entertaining and often very moving."
- 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 [London] Observer "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 Spectator "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."
- Max Hastings, The [London] Sunday Times "Splendidly vivid. . . . There are endless delightful twists to the tale."
- Time Out "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.'"
- The Times "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."
- Kirkus "A preternaturally talented liar and pretty good safecracker becomes a "spy prodigy"
