{"id":3209,"date":"2008-03-07T08:29:20","date_gmt":"2008-03-07T08:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zmetro.com\/?p=3209"},"modified":"2008-03-07T08:29:20","modified_gmt":"2008-03-07T08:29:20","slug":"agent_zigzag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=3209","title":{"rendered":"Agent Zigzag"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just finished this excellent book by Ben Macintyre. Joseph Kanon digs in<\/a>: <\/p>\n

It\u2019s rare that a single war story inspires two books in the same season. But even by World War II standards, the exploits of Eddie Chapman, a professional Soho criminal turned double agent for the Germans and the British, are extraordinary. His is a spy drama in the classic manner, complete with secret codes, invisible ink and parachute drops, cyanide capsules, sexy blondes (named Dagmar, no less) and a dashing hero. One of his girlfriends thought Eddie looked like Errol Flynn; certainly Flynn could have played him. He was an adventurer with a smile. Ben Macintyre says he could look you \u201cstraight in the eye\u201d while he picked your pocket.
\nChapman has surfaced before. In 1954 he published \u201cThe Eddie Chapman Story,\u201d memoirs so eviscerated by the Official Secrets Act that his work for MI5 is not even mentioned (a gap that led some readers to conclude he had been only a German spy). A 1966 update, \u201cThe Real Eddie Chapman Story,\u201d tells more, but guardedly. This book led, in turn, to a dim 1967 film, \u201cTriple Cross.\u201d And during the postwar years, readers of the London press could follow the wealthy \u201cgentleman crook\u201d through a series of escapades.
\nBy the time of his death in 1997, however, Chapman\u2019s notoriety had faded. Then, in 2001, MI5 declassified his file, with more than 1,700 pages of interrogation transcripts, internal memorandums and radio intercepts \u2014 a trove of detailed information, catnip to anyone interested in wartime espionage. To Ben Macintyre and Nicholas Booth, both seasoned London journalists, the chance to tell the full Eddie Chapman story at last proved irresistible. Here were all the makings of a popular book. Or, as it happened, two.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just finished this excellent book by Ben Macintyre. Joseph Kanon digs in<\/a>: <\/p>\n

It\u2019s rare that a single war story inspires two books in the same season. But even by World War II standards, the exploits of Eddie Chapman, a professional Soho criminal turned double agent for the Germans and the British, are extraordinary. His is a spy drama in the classic manner, complete with secret codes, invisible ink and parachute drops, cyanide capsules, sexy blondes (named Dagmar, no less) and a dashing hero. One of his girlfriends thought Eddie looked like Errol Flynn; certainly Flynn could have played him. He was an adventurer with a smile. Ben Macintyre says he could look you \u201cstraight in the eye\u201d while he picked your pocket.
\nChapman has surfaced before. In 1954 he published \u201cThe Eddie Chapman Story,\u201d memoirs so eviscerated by the Official Secrets Act that his work for MI5 is not even mentioned (a gap that led some readers to conclude he had been only a German spy). A 1966 update, \u201cThe Real Eddie Chapman Story,\u201d tells more, but guardedly. This book led, in turn, to a dim 1967 film, \u201cTriple Cross.\u201d And during the postwar years, readers of the London press could follow the wealthy \u201cgentleman crook\u201d through a series of escapades.
\nBy the time of his death in 1997, however, Chapman\u2019s notoriety had faded. Then, in 2001, MI5 declassified his file, with more than 1,700 pages of interrogation transcripts, internal memorandums and radio intercepts \u2014 a trove of detailed information, catnip to anyone interested in wartime espionage. To Ben Macintyre and Nicholas Booth, both seasoned London journalists, the chance to tell the full Eddie Chapman story at last proved irresistible. Here were all the makings of a popular book. Or, as it happened, two.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,33],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3209"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}