Agent Zigzag - Ben Macintyre

Author: Ben Macintyre

Publisher: Bloomsbury

First published: 2007

Setting: Britain, France, Germany, Norway
Read in August 2013

My Rating ★★★★  4.2

My Waterstones Review

Eddie Chapman was 24 when Ben Macintyre takes up his account of Britain's most improbable double agent of WWII. At 17 Eddie had lasted just 9 months in the army before absconding. When the army finally caught up with him he received 84 days in Aldershot military prison before being dishonorably discharged. After release he returned to Soho and turned to petty crime, prostitution and blackmail picking up lengthening sentences along the way. He then turned his hand to safe-cracking and formed the 'Jelly Gang' so called because of their use of gelignite, they were successful. Fast cars, Saville Row suits and living it up in London followed along with acquaintances made with Noel Coward, Ivor Novello and Marlene Dietrich. In February 1939 the police finally caught up with him in Jersey, but Eddie escaped by jumping through a restaurant window and while on the run was fortunate enough to break into a pavilion before being caught, by breaking a Jersey law he avoided a quick return to Britain.

Eddie received a two year sentence with an extra year added after he briefly escaped from jail. On 30th June 1940 while still serving his three year sentence Jersey was invaded by Germans. In October 1941 he was released from prison but wanting to return to Britain he conjured an ingenious plan, if I bluffed my way into becoming a German spy they would will find a way of getting me home undercover. With a friend, Faramus, they wrote a letter to the German Command offering their services but they heard nothing, until one morning the Gestapo arrested them for sabotage, a new experience for Eddie being arrested for something he had not done. They were transferred to the infamous Fort de Romainville prison in Paris. Meanwhile the letter had reached the German Secret Service and by April 1942 Eddie had been recruited by Dr Stephan Graumann, leaving his friend Faramus behind as hostage for Chapman's good behaviour. Trained in wireless, sabotage, espionage and parachute jumping and with a codename of Fritz it was in December 1942 when Eddie parachuted into Britain.

Bletchley Park had been tracking references to Fritz since February 1942, were aware of the 9500 Francs paid for remodeling Eddie's teeth after a failed parachute jump and knew that Fritz would soon be going on his holiday. Early on 16th December 1942 Eddie landed in a celery field in Cambridgeshire having missed his drop point after being dangled out of an aircraft at high speed.

Ben Macintyre's account is brilliant and is extremely easy to read, a page turner in fact, this is generally not the case for either a historical book or a biography. It reads like a piece of far fetched fiction but every word is true, outstanding for its genre.