A suposedly true story, but frankly it did not have much of a ring of truth about it. Certainly parts are true, but as much of the story relied on the writings of a con man, how much can one believe. It has that, after the fact ring, of the victors did nothing wrong and the vanquished did nothing right. The con man, if the story is to be trusted lived like a prince in both France, Norway, Germany and England fetted by all sides. Hmmm, Doesn't pass my litmus test.

[,..] If that were the case, I'd never read another spy fiction story the rest of my life. There is no excitement, no glamour, no dark secrets, no interesting double-cross-save-the-Brits-and-sink-the-Germans storyline, or even any tricks of the trade that I found engrossing. While I would not call this book tedious, I was not anxious to pick it up everyday and get into it. It was just there; just interesting enough to finish, but not the highlight of my day.

This is purely about Eddie Chapman and his love of excitement (as least it was exciting for him) and putting his life on the line into the unknown role of double spy. Unfortunately for the reader, the book concentrates on the mundane learning of various espionage antics that are never used. He was wined and dined by both sides and given anything that he wanted. But what does he really do to earn this treatment? Very little - a couple of weeks of misguidance during the V1 bombings and some misdirection about anti-submarine devices, but nothing in any detail. As this story is told, the ineptness of the German spy ring to England was interesting but hardly something that becomes a page turner.

I was expecting to learn more of the British Intelligence and how they handled the intricacies of the double spy. Other stories that I have read have shown the British to be light years ahead of everyone in this business, but you get only a glimpse of their thinking; almost as if it is tangential to the plot. There could have been some interesting detail on the alluded to, but never really divulged nervousness at the wireless. The reader never gets a feel for the danger involved. The story is too vague.

Eddie Chapman was a pawn used by both England and Germany and really never did anything that can be gleaned from this book for either party except to put a feather in each "spymaster's" cap for their respective governments. There are other acts of sabotage by other agents that are mentioned in the book, but basically nothing interesting is from the main character.

It seems that Chapman's life consisted of living in one hamlet after another while he was "trained" (with at least one woman in both England and in Norway) with one group of spymasters in one country or another for most of the book.

The author did a nice job with the description of what was happening in Norway with the Nazi occupation, but again you are left wanting more details and that was one chapter.

I guess I expected more thrills and danger. This was like a spy club for singles. The Germans are portrayed as totally bubbling idiots in almost all phases of the book. The politics of the situation were not very well explained. There is quite a bit of haggling over whether Chapman was a good spy or a counter intelligence spy by the German authorities, but the author doesn't go into any detail of the decision process.

It seems to me that this is a book about an small time crook that attempted to throw himself into anything that was life-threatening with the rewards of a romp in the sack and as much money as he could get. It does make for somewhat interesting reading, but I can't help but feel that the book was written with a movie in mind; it has that vague and incomplete feel that a movie book has.

The trials and tribulations of Eddie Chapman might have made an interesting story with another author, but this story was a disappointment to me. Many of the reviews mention how much this book is just like fiction but that it is a true story. If that were the case, I'd never read another spy fiction story the rest of my life. There is no excitement, no glamour, no dark secrets, no interesting double-cross-save-the-Brits-and-sink-the-Germans storyline, or even any tricks of the trade that I found engrossing. While I would not call this book tedious, I was not anxious to pick it up everyday and get into it. It was just there; just interesting enough to finish, but not the highlight of my day.

This is purely about Eddie Chapman and his love of excitement (as least it was exciting for him) and putting his life on the line into the unknown role of double spy. Unfortunately for the reader, the book concentrates on the mundane learning of various espionage antics that are never used. He was wined and dined by both sides and given anything that he wanted. But what does he really do to earn this treatment? Very little - a couple of weeks of misguidance during the V1 bombings and some misdirection about anti-submarine devices, but nothing in any detail. As this story is told, the ineptness of the German spy ring to England was interesting but hardly something that becomes a page turner.

I was expecting to learn more of the British Intelligence and how they handled the intricacies of the double spy. Other stories that I have read have shown the British to be light years ahead of everyone in this business, but you get only a glimpse of their thinking; almost as if it is tangential to the plot. There could have been some interesting detail on the alluded to, but never really divulged nervousness at the wireless. The reader never gets a feel for the danger involved. The story is too vague.

Eddie Chapman was a pawn used by both England and Germany and really never did anything that can be gleaned from this book for either party except to put a feather in each "spymaster's" cap for their respective governments. There are other acts of sabotage by other agents that are mentioned in the book, but basically nothing interesting is from the main character.

It seems that Chapman's life consisted of living in one hamlet after another while he was "trained" (with at least one woman in both England and in Norway) with one group of spymasters in one country or another for most of the book.

The author did a nice job with the description of what was happening in Norway with the Nazi occupation, but again you are left wanting more details and that was one chapter.

I guess I expected more thrills and danger. This was like a spy club for singles. The Germans are portrayed as totally bubbling idiots in almost all phases of the book. The politics of the situation were not very well explained. There is quite a bit of haggling over whether Chapman was a good spy or a counter intelligence spy by the German authorities, but the author doesn't go into any detail of the decision process.

It seems to me that this is a book about an small time crook that attempted to throw himself into anything that was life-threatening with the rewards of a romp in the sack and as much money as he could get. It does make for somewhat interesting reading, but I can't help but feel that the book was written with a movie in mind; it has that vague and incomplete feel that a movie book has.

Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal

Very interesting true story of a double spy (Britain and Germany) during
WWII. After the correspondence from wartime had been released, the author pulled together thousands of details and presented a very informative behind-the-scenes look at the life of a spy on both the Nazi
and British sides of the war. A fascinating peek at wartime in both
countries, as well as the amazing life of a double spy!

Not a fast read, but a very interesting one!

This is a fast paced, exciting story of spy craft and adventures by the most successful double agent of WWII, Eddie Chapman. Ben Macintyre working from recently declassified documents has structured a narrative that cries out mini-series or major motion picture. The amazing story begins with Chapman in jail leaving behind a trail of petty crimes and safe crackings and many jilted women only to be captured by the Germans to whom he volunteers. Instead the Germans have him and a friend shipped to a prison in France. And here in a twist of fate ends up being trained as a German spy who is eventually is awarded the Iron Cross for completing his missions successfully. The Germans never guess that while in England Chapman (Agent ZIGZAG to the British) turns double agent and is involved in many of the most top secret misinformation campaigns of the war. He is interrogated over and over by both the Germans and British and also has time to find women to befriend, and handlers to be loyal too. Chapman is ultimately pardoned by the British for his roll spying for the British. The narrative is a believe it or not true story that will have you riveted from beginning to end. This is simply the most entertaining book I have read in some time. If it were a novel you would never believe it. Why this has not found its way on to the best seller list is beyond me you should not miss Agent ZIGZAG.

If you are an early baby-boomer, then you will perhaps have heard bits and pieces of Chapman's story over the past 30-40 years as rumors and occasional releases of previously classified MI5 materials came to light. Finally, it appears, the whole tale can be told and quite a story it is. With the opening of all the files, the tale of this extraordinary young man--successes and failings--comes to light. The author does good work, indeed. Worth the hardcover price.

What a pleasure to sit down with 'Agent Zigzag'. It makes you never want to pick up another spy novel in your life, so extraordinary and particular are the experiences of Zigzag, aka, Eddie Chapman. It's the little things that convince. Without giving anything away, who knew that the British Intelligence services wasted time looking for 'Bobby the Pig' when Bobby the pig was simply Chapman's pet pig mentioned when he was learning to send coded messages? Mcintyre's account occasionally slips towards mocking German Intelligence who certainly had their fair share of successes, but that takes little away from the sheer thrill of following Chapman back and forth between England, France and Germany. Certainly to this reader, it was an intriguing mixture of psychological study and page turning adventure.

Eric Chapman is a young career criminal. He's sitting in a jail in Jersey when the Nazis take over in World War II. Eric gets the Germans interested in his proposal to become a spy for them, and is whisked off to an Abwehr training camp in occupied France. The Germans question his loyalty to their cause, but after a long period of testing and interrogation they decide to trust him. What they don't know is that Mr. Chapman is a sociopath who is using them to keep out of jail. He is parachuted back into England where he immediately tells British intelligence that he has been sent over as a German spy. So now he becomes a double agent.

Eric is a charming fellow, and develops friendships in both countries' intelligence services. It never bothers him that he is betraying people. It also doesn't bother him that he is involved in serious romances with women in England and Norway. He manages to convince his German minders that he has blown up a British airplane factory, and then makes his way back to France where he joins his German friends and has a great time before being sent to Norway.

While in retrospect Mr. Chapman doesn't achieve an awful lot as a spy, he does enjoy his new life. The Germans are fond of him as are most of his British minders. He has a fiancé in England, but thinks nothing of carrying on another romance in Norway. He even engages in a few criminal activities while spying. When he finally is dismissed from the intelligence service he happily goes back to his life of crime. He found himself in court from time to time, but never was convicted of anything. As an honorary crime correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph he warned readers to steer clear of people like him.

You can read this book as history, but I think you will find it even more interesting as entertainment. In real life people warmed to this engaging crook, and you develop some affection for him while reading this book. Just don't buy a used car from him.

World War II spy story of double agent Eddie Chapman reads better than the best of John Le Carre's novels (see my reviews here)

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
Honourable Schoolboy
Smiley's People
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy


all the more amazing because it is true. In fact, many of the characters and methods of the British spy agency MI5 described by Le Carre are instantly recognizable in their real-life counterparts here.

The book was made possible because of the opening of MI5 files, and has the advantage of verification by German communications unencrypted by the Enigma code-breaking team during the war that corroborate Chapman's turncoat confession and MI5's handling of him. Macinyre's brief and fascinating epilogue describes additional eyewitness accounts after early publication of the story in Britain and other venues before the American publication.

Perhaps most interesting is that Chapman through his life was and remained an unrepentant criminal. He lied and stole as a way of life, as a habit, and seemingly as a hobby, ideal preparation for his role as a double agent when he could steal and take pay from two employers. His incontinence carried over to his personal life, as he seemed equally devoted to the woman who was the mother of his child in England while at the same time living with and confiding his double-crossing secret to a Norwegian resistance fighter (kept in the pay of the German secret service until the end of the war!), and carrying a torch for the woman he left behind (literally) while running from the police before the war.

The reader waits in vain through the whole book for that turning point in his life when Eddie realizes the moral failure of his career and conscience and becomes a whole and better man. Surely such a hero in service to his country at its most pressing hour would become the pure knight we want him to be. He never did, living a long and financially rewarding life of crime after the war (relying more than once on his shadowy secret service references to keep him out of prison), always and unrepentantly Agent Zigzag.

Such a story begs to be told on film in Grand Hollywood style, a role that a younger George Clooney could have carried to perfection. And a quick google turns up a listing for the Agent Zigzag movie in production (by Tom Hanks) for a 2010 release--no word yet on the casting. In the meantime, we can hope that the six hours of documentary footage of an elderly and dieing (and still unrepentant) Eddie Chapman shown to Macintyre will be edited and released.

For the past 30 years or so, I have only read non-fiction books. However, it's been quite uncommon for me to find a true page turner - but this is one of such books.

There is very little that one can add to previous reviews or to the editorial comment. However, let me just say that as a mix of biographical and historical book, this book has all of the perfect elements to make an outstanding true account: intrigue, suspense... without the usual tiresome raft of names, dates and places of the typical historical book. This is a true gem that proves that truth is much more bizarre than fiction.

This is the book that will make everyone to enjoy (or rediscover) the true pleasure of reading!

Ben Macintyre's excellent research provides the backbone to this amazing book - the story reads like James Bond, only with the grit of real life. It provides us with a peek into an amazing life, and the people who really participate in that side of the world - the good, the bad, the truthful, and the unreliable.

Brilliant and exciting book. Well written--but a few too many editing mistakes. Some areas are alluded to that I wish would have been explored more, id est, Germany sympathies and more teeth to the assertion that he may have spied for the Germans and passed good info. while a double-agent.

I thought the author maintained good objectivity as a British writer. I wish he would have discussed the post-WWII concentration camp conditions of the Nazi prisoners hidden and held at Beltchely(believe it was here) where one of Eddie's Brit handlers took over.

Great book--should become a movie--lots of sharp writing and analysis

Macintyre tells Chapman's WW2 story exceptionally well, keeping it pacey when it would be so easy to litter each page with footnotes and extensive background information.

Morris Dancers, co-incidences in the Berkeley, professional conjurors, excesses by the British and German elite, mistakes and double-crosses, the story of Chapman's Iron Cross, personalities and luck. Just some of the colour that make this story stranger then fiction but an absolutely compelling and entertaining read.

Can't recommend it highly enough.

The book was excellent. It is well written and engaging. The life story is fascinating, and the descriptions of the British anti-spy organizations are eye-opening.

You never would have picked him but Agent Zigzag, a most unusual man, was just the person for the job. Who would have suspected he was a Nazi spy. Embarrassing to both sides but highly effective in his endeavors. I would not call him a hero, but what he accomplished was heroic. I would expect this to be made a movie in the near future. Truth is stranger than fiction for sure. This book fills in some historic holes. A truly excellent tale. Just when you thought you heard it all, the story of Agent Zigzag appears. An excellent book I would highly recommend, especially to any affecionado of WWII.

Agent Zigzag has no deep meaning beyond the reflection that (as the Book of Proverbs says) the intentions of a man are "like deep water." But it is a roaring good story told by a master of the literary craft. Agent Zigzag takes its place with World War II classics such as Ewen Montagu, The Man Who Never Was (1953) and David Howarth, We Die Alone (1955).

"Agent Zig Zag" is a far better book than "Zig Zag," the other book about Eddie Chapman, the extraordinary WWII double agent with loyalties to the Brits. However, for all the hype about these two books, neither is a "thriller," per se, and both tell what is mostly an interesting (sometimes fascinating) "period piece" story about the unlikely thief-criminal-womanizer-sociopath who became a famous -- if barely trusted -- spy for Britain. "Agent Zig Zag" is more of a psychological accounting of Chapman than anything, and yet the story does give a very well crafted "insider" view of WWII, a perspective that few other novels or books about WWII espionage ever have done -- and I've read most of them! One is left with a (though possibly quite biased) clear insight into the workings of the Abwehr and also its counter part, the British Intelligence Service. How anything ever got done by either is a small miracle. Eddie Chapman, the spy in question, is thoroughly unlikeable and wholly unsympathetic. One can admire his heroics, his risk-taking, and his sheer "bon vivant" style of being a spy and of living his life in general. He was smart, that I can give him. My criticism of the other book ("Zig Zag") is tempered by this book. "Zig Zag's" author fawns over Eddie Chapman and makes you feel guilty if you don't agree with the author's over-wrought sense of how the Brits never honored Chapman's achievements -- in other words, those "ungrateful Brits." Here, in "Agent Zig Zag" with this author, you are free to decide that for yourself. Both books, however, are flawed from this standpoint: NEITHER book spells out in clear form EXACTLY what it is that Eddie Chapman actually DID -- over the course of his engagement by both the Germans and the Brits other than the fact that he did NOT GET CAUGHT by the Germans -- to really and truly help or assist in the outcome of the war!! The people who deserve credit for whatever it is Chapman accomplished are his team of British handlers (and to a lesser extent his German handlers), those very smart men who designed his activities, who created the deceptions and who protected him from his own self-destructive ways. Most of the time, as I understood the story, whether Eddie was in Madrid, Paris, Oslo, Berlin, Lisbon or London, he lived a high and rather easy life of booze, women, and debauchery. Very little of his character is admirable and almost none of his behavior stands the test of devotion to duty or to people. He really was a jerk. He betrayed nearly everyone he ever met. He made false promises to at least 3 women who loved him, whereupon he abandoned them for other women. He remained married to one of them, Betty Farmer, throughout his life, but that marriage lasted only because Farmer did not abandon him! Today, he would be diagnosed as a psychopath or sociopath, an angry and unpredictable abuser, and alcoholic, a man with little conscience and one who rarely learned from experience -- someone who relied on his charm and false social skills to get what he wanted -- usually money, women, booze and high risk adventures -- for the thrill of it. So, what you get with this book is clear insight into the espionage scene in WWII and an in-depth psychological profile of a thoroughly despicable man, who may have helped the allied cause as a result of his recruitment to play off both sides against each other for his own fanatical need for adventure. But the question remains in my mind: just what indeed did he do -- for either side? The answer is not found in this book, no matter how well-written it is. I truly liked the book.

This book kept me throughly engaged on a recent trip to Europe. Well written, with a sharp focus on character throughout, this is clearly the winner of the two books currently available. I was fascinated at how Chapman walked such a thin line while in contact with both UK and German
agents, and how his charm masked a very dark personality. I felt at the end he was treated miserably by the UK, just cast aside and not rewarded financially in the way he should have been. Brave he certainly was, and possessed with a criminal mind at heart. But there was always the fact that you rather liked him and admired the way he had his own standards. Agent Zigzag will keep you glued to the page.

This highly entertaining and utterly gripping book is the true story of Eddie Chapman, a British petty criminal who ended up serving as an spy for both England and Germany during World War 2, and who was hailed as a hero by both sides. "Agent Zigzag" is the name that he was given by the British authorities who were aware of his status as a double agent and used him to feed misinformation to the Germans.

Chapman's story is so full of adventure and ripe with coincidence that would be unbelievable if it were a novel. The story of how he comes to be an agent for the Germans is in itself worthy of a movie, taking us from a bank robbery in Scotland to prison - and eventual freedom - on the island of Jersey and then incarceration in the worst of Parisian prisons.

Chapman emerges as a kind of James Bond character: a handsome and charming rogue with a penchant for adventure, for gambling, fine food and fast women. He is a fascinating mass of contradictions: utterly loyal to his friends even as he betrays them, a hopeless criminal who develops into a resourceful spy. But even the minor characters leap off the pages in this tale. The photographs are also well chosen and add to the story.

Ben MacIntyre has amassed a vast amount of detail about not only Chapman, but his associates in both the German and English secret services. There is lots of interesting information about how those secret services functioned and what they achieved during the war. I was particularly riveted by the details about his training in spy techniques by the Nazis. However the book never gets bogged down in historical facts. Like the best biographies, it reads almost like fiction. I highly recommend this book.

This is purported to be based on actual facts. Whether or not it's all true it is certainly one of the best spy stories I've read in ages. This would make a great film. The plots and twisys are as good as those imagined by Ambler and Lecarre.

Unfortunately, I have trouble reading history---but not this book not Agent Zigzag. Ben Macintyre, author, has given us a portrait of a man, Eddie Chapman, who is at once a sociopath,a womanizer, a double agent who was successful in his many ruses, a brilliant man, all given to the reader in the most readable manner, a book that was hard to put down. Imagine the money spent during WW11, when people were starving, (and of course being killed) on keeping this one man feed, (stomach and ego), taught, encouraged in his job. I have recommended this book to everyone I talk with. Please enjoy reading Agent Zigzag. N.Salen

This is an absolutely fantastic book. There are many details about the war I had not read/heard about before. Lots of facts and details scattered throughout. Very worthwhile reading.

I see there are two books out on ZigZag (Eddie Chapman). the other by Nicholas Booth. According to the Booklist's review Booth's ZigZag book goes "into greater detail about Eddie's life BEFORE he became a spy and into the histories of some of the people he knew and worked with.
Drawing heavily on the memories of Eddie's widow, Betty Chapman, .."

Ben Macintyre's book on the other hand is more about the how and the aftermath of Eddies becoming a spy. The nuts and bolts. The missions etc. Sure Macintyre goes into Eddie's prior (and later) life as a career criminal but just enough to give you an idea of his character.

Eddie was a constant criminal like I'm a constant reader. He blew many safes, stealing tons of money and blowing it all on booze, women, clothes.
"He had affairs with a number of women on the fringe of London high society and then blackmailed them with photographs taken by an accomplice." He was a real nice guy. He was a rip thru and thru. A stone cold liar. BUT he came together, risked his life, and put his talents to work for his country.

It was interesting all the elaborate deceptions the British war machine concocted and successfully carried out. How the British steadfastly held / guarded their secrets and how they (rich, poor, media, businesses...) all came together to fight.
Something the US would never be able to do.

Eddie himself wrote about is life (The Eddie Chapman story, The real Eddie Chapman story, Free agent:) and even made a short film. But being the lier that he was, a lot of it was lies.

Over and over through the years as I've read books about real life spies ("Comrade" Kim Philby and Sidney Reilly among others) I've been struck by how much more amazing these non-fiction stories were than those concocted as would-be pulp fiction thrillers. I've also been struck at how all the best spies were anything but good people, and they shared traits of cruelty and self-love that bordered on sociopathic narcissism. Ben Macintyre's biography of Eddie Chapman gives us a man who continues that dubious tradition. This page-turner is fact-filled and well-written and the life it tells of outdoes anything fiction has cranked out in quite a while. It's a very enjoyable read that presented the history of someone I personally had never heard of before I was introduced to him in this book.

Eddie Chapman was no James Bond or even a Sidney Reilly, but he was one of the boldest, most brazen con men ever to serve a nation or a cause, and in so doing he found some redemption from the wrongs of his earlier life. From his days as a roguish charmer who infiltrated high society and first infatuated and later blackmailed rich women in the most callous and base ways imaginable, this safecracker, thief and extortionist found himself sprung by the Germans early in the war when he was then serving a fifteen-year sentence in an English prison in the Channel Islands.

The charismatic Chapman, as liked by his German liberators as by those who'd known him back home, was then recruited by the Nazis as a spy who agreed to do their bidding and sabotage a British aircraft factory in Hertfordshire. He parachuted back onto his native soil during the busy Christmas season of 1942, only to prove his ultimate loyalty by going to the British and offering to in turn spy on the Germans. Ultimately faking the attack in Hertfordshire and returning to Germany through neutral Portugal, Chapman concocted a plan in which he would assassinate Adolph Hitler at a political rally. Although this plan obviously never came to fruition, Chapman bravely continued his double agency thru to the war's conclusion, an astounding feat of skill, luck and sheer courage all the more amazing considering the short lifespan of most other double agents.

So skilled was he at his falsehoods that Chapman was befriended by a number of well-placed Nazi personnel, and was decorated for his service to the Third Reich. Eventually after a posting in German-held Norway, late in the war Chapman was again smuggled into the United Kingdom where in his most noble deed he saved countless lives by concocting false reports to the Germans on the accuracy of their V1 and V2 rockets. In his communiqués Chapman claimed these flying bombs were landing beyond their intended targets, causing the Luftwaffe to re-adjust them to locations the British deemed less populated and therefore safer.

Incredibly after this the gifted liar and actor Chapman returned yet again to Nazi-controlled Norway, where he continued to be of service to his government in London, this time by turning over misleading information to the by-then moribund German military.

Chapman's life was one of amazing luck, daring, and amorality, but his story is also one of a man who betrayed nearly every friend who ever trusted him, and who ruined many lives, even as his service record shows he saved many others. He went on to not only survive the Second World War but live to old age, profiting from an MI5 pension and from the proceeds of the book and film royalties to his remarkable story. Macintyre skillfully takes us into the deeds and era of this confidence man turned double agent, and in doing so has given his readers a fine work of non-fiction that is a pleasure to complete.