By the Same Author
Forgotten Fatherland
The Napoleon of Crime
A Foreign Field
Josiah the Great
Agent Zigzag
For Your Eyes Only
The Last Word
Operation Mincemeat
Double Cross
Also available by Ben Macintyre
Agent Zigzag
The True Wartime Story of Eddie Chapman: Lover, Traitor, Hero, Spy
One December night in 1942, a Nazi parachutist landed in a Cambridgeshire field. His mission: to sabotage the British war effort. His name was Eddie Chapman, but he would shortly become MI5’s Agent Zigzag. Dashing and louche, courageous and unpredictable, inside the traitor was a hero, inside the villain, a man of conscience: the problem for Chapman, his many lovers and his spymasters, was knowing where one ended and the other began. Ben Macintyre weaves together diaries, letters, photographs, memories and top-secret MI5 files to create the exhilarating account of Britain’s most sensational double agent.
‘As engrossing as any thriller and more improbable than most’
Daily Telegraph
‘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’
Book of the Week, Mail on Sunday
‘Superb’
John le Carré
Operation Mincemeat
The True Spy Story that Changed the Course of World War II
One overcast April morning in 1943, a fisherman notices a corpse floating in the sea off the coast of Spain. When the body is brought ashore, he is identified as a British soldier, Major William Martin of the Royal Marines. A leather attaché case, secured to his belt, reveals an intelligence goldmine: top-secret documents Allied invasion plans.
But Major William Martin never existed. The body is that of a dead Welsh tramp and every single document is fake. Operation Mincemeat is the incredible true story of the most extraordinary deception ever planned by Churchill’s spies – an outrageous lie that travelled from a Whitehall basement, all the way to Hitler’s desk.
‘With its fantastic plot and its cast of eccentric characters, the book reads like the most improbable of spy stories. It is a tribute to Macintyre’s skill that we never for a moment forget that it is actually all true’
Daily Telegraph
‘Macintyre has a journalist’s nose for a great story, and a novelist’s skill in its narration ... spellbinding’
Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday
‘Compelling’
William Boyd, The Times
Double Cross
The True Story of the D-Day Spies
D-Day, 6 June 1944, the turning point of the Second World War, was a victory of arms. But it was also a triumph for a different kind of operation: one of deceit...
At the heart of the deception was the ‘Double Cross System’, a team of double agents whose bravery, treachery, greed and inspiration succeeded in convincing the Nazis that Calais and Norway, not Normandy, were the targets of the 150,000-strong Allied invasion force. These were not conventional warriors, but their masterpiece of deceit saved thousands of lives. Their codenames were Bronx, Brutus, Treasure, Tricycle and Garbo. This is their story.
‘Macintyre is a first-class narrative historian ... as pacy as a thriller and better written than most’ Sunday Telegraph
‘Enthralling ... A book so gripping that I even found myself reading it in lifts, frequently emitting snorts of incredulity. A reminder that heroism can be found in the most unlikely places’ Evening Standard
‘Utterly gripping’ Antony Beevor
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First published in Great Britain 2014
This electronic edition published in 2014 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © Ben Macintyre 2014
Afterword copyright © David Cornwell 2014
The moral right of the author has been asserted
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ISBN 9781408851746
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