Reviews for Agent Zigzag : a true story of Nazi espionage, love, and betrayal
Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.
Macintyre's book is due in November. It's nearly 100 pages shorter than Booth's 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 Booth's collaborator, in Macintyre's book, she's merely another source. The book is less personal than Booth's; it reads more like an official history. It should also be noted that Macintyre's 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 Macintyre's spelling is the correct one. Similarly, Booth gives Eddie's 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 Booth's book could be due to proofreading errors, and not mistakes of fact.)--Pitt, David Copyright 2007 Booklist
Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
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 Gröning 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. Based on the same material, another first-rate text (Nicholas Booth's ZigZag, 2007) with much the same Hitchcockian contortions qualifies as an exciting black-and-white spy thriller. Macintyre's version is in full color. One of the great true spy stories of World War II, vividly rendered. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
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) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Sixty years after his incredible career as a double agent for the British, Eddie Chapman (1914-97) 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 (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
