Most Popular Books by Ben Macintyre

Publisher Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The epic true story of Kim Philby, the Cold War’s most infamous spy, from the “master storyteller” (San Francisco Chronicle) and author of Prisoners of the Castle. Now an MGM+ series starring Damian Lewis, Guy Pearce, and Anna Maxwell Martin “[A Spy Among Friends] reads like a story by Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, or John le Carré, leavened with a dollop of P. G. Wodehouse.”—Walter Isaacson, New York Times Book Review Who was Kim Philby? Those closest to him—like his fellow MI6 officer and best friend since childhood, Nicholas Elliot, and the CIA’s head of counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton—knew him as a loyal confidant and an unshakeable patriot. Philby was a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain’s counterintelligence against the Soviet Union. Together with Elliott and Angleton he stood on the front lines of the Cold War, holding Communism at bay. But he was secretly betraying them both: He was working for the Russians the entire time. Every word uttered in confidence to Philby made its way to Moscow, sinking almost every important Anglo-American spy operation for twenty years and costing hundreds of lives. So how was this cunning double-agent finally exposed? In A Spy Among Friends, Ben Macintyre expertly weaves the heart-pounding tale of how Philby almost got away with it all—and what happened when he was finally unmasked. Based on personal papers and never-before-seen British intelligence files and told with heart-pounding suspense and keen psychological insight, A Spy Among Friends is a fascinating portrait of a Cold War spy and the countrymen who remained willfully blind to his treachery. ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Shelf Awareness

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The celebrated author of Double Cross and Rogue Heroes returns with a thrilling Americans-era tale of Oleg Gordievsky, the Russian whose secret work helped hasten the end of the Cold War. “The best true spy story I have ever read.”—JOHN LE CARRÉ Named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist • Shortlisted for the Bailie Giffords Prize in Nonfiction If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation''s communism as both criminal and philistine. He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union''s top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6. For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots, as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States''s nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war. Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky''s name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain''s obviously top-level source. Their obsession ultimately doomed Gordievsky: the CIA officer assigned to identify him was none other than Aldrich Ames, the man who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets. Unfolding the delicious three-way gamesmanship between America, Britain, and the Soviet Union, and culminating in the gripping cinematic beat-by-beat of Gordievsky''s nail-biting escape from Moscow in 1985, Ben Macintyre''s latest may be his best yet. Like the greatest novels of John le Carré, it brings readers deep into a world of treachery and betrayal, where the lines bleed between the personal and the professional, and one man''s hatred of communism had the power to change the future of nations.

From the bestselling author of Agent Zigzag. The thrilling true story of the greatest and most successful wartime deception ever attempted A Richard & Judy Book Club selection

"The SAS is the world''s most renowned and ruthless special forces unit. Launched by a small band of maverick officers in the darkest days of the Second World War, the SAS played a pivotal role in the Allied victory. Now, 75 years on, it has finally decided to tell its story. It has opened all its secret archives to an author for the first time. This is a book about a new style of warfare, and an unexpected species of hero. This is a book about the meaning of courage."

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “superb [and] intensely readable” (The Washington Post) untold story of one of the greatest deceptions of World War II and the extraordinary spies who achieved it—from the bestselling author of Prisoners of the Castle “Not since Ian Fleming and John le Carré has a spy writer so captivated readers.”—The Hollywood Reporter On June 6, 1944, 150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy and suffered an astonishingly low rate of casualties. A stunning military achievement, it was also a masterpiece of trickery. Operation Fortitude, which protected and enabled the invasion, and the Double Cross system, which specialized in turning German spies into double agents, tricked the Nazis into believing that the Allied attacks would come in Calais and Norway rather than Normandy. It was the most sophisticated and successful deception operation ever carried out, ensuring Allied victory at the most pivotal moment in the war. This epic event has never before been told from the perspective of the key individuals in the Double Cross system, until now. These include its director (a brilliant, urbane intelligence officer), a colorful assortment of MI5 handlers (as well as their counterparts in Nazi intelligence), and the five spies who formed Double Cross’s nucleus: a dashing Serbian playboy, a Polish fighter-pilot, a bisexual Peruvian party girl, a deeply eccentric Spaniard, and a volatile Frenchwoman. Together they made up one of the oddest and most brilliant military units ever assembled. With the same depth of research, eye for the absurd, and masterful storytelling that have made Ben Macintyre an international bestseller, Double Cross is a captivating narrative of the spies who wove a web so intricate it ensnared Hitler’s army and carried thousands of D-Day troops across the Channel in safety.

“Ben Macintyre’s rollicking, spellbinding Agent Zigzag blends the spy-versus-spy machinations of John le Carré with the high farce of Evelyn Waugh.”—William Grimes, The New York Times (Editors’ Choice) “Wildly improbable but entirely true . . . [a] compellingly cinematic spy thriller with verve.”—Entertainment Weekly ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Entertainment Weekly ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post Eddie Chapman was a charming criminal, a con man, and a philanderer. He was also one of the most remarkable double agents Britain has ever produced. In 1941, after training as German spy in occupied France, Chapman was parachuted into Britain with a revolver, a wireless, and a cyanide pill, with orders from the Abwehr to blow up an airplane factory. Instead, he contacted M15, the British Secret service, and for the next four years, Chapman worked as a double agent, a lone British spy at the heart of the German Secret Service. Inside the traitor was a man of loyalty; inside the villain was a hero. The problem for Chapman, his spymasters, and his lovers was to know where one persona ended and the other began. Based on recently declassified files, Agent Zigzag tells Chapman’s full story for the first time. It’s a gripping tale of loyalty, love, treachery, espionage, and the thin and shifting line between fidelity and betrayal.

From the bestselling author of Agent Zigzag and Double Cross the true story of Friedrich Nietzsche''s bigoted, imperious sister who founded a ''racially pure'' colony in Paraguay together with a band of blond-haired fellow Germans.

In a forbidding Gothic castle on a hilltop in the heart of Nazi Germany, an unlikely band of British officers spent the Second World War plotting daring escapes from their German captors. Or so the story of Colditz has gone, unchallenged for 70 years. But that tale contains only part of the truth. The astonishing inside story, revealed for the first time by bestselling historian Ben Macintyre, is a tale of the indomitable human spirit, but also one of class conflict, homosexuality, espionage, insanity and farce. Through an astonishing range of material, Macintyre reveals a remarkable cast of characters, wider than previously seen and hitherto hidden from history, taking in prisoners and captors who were living cheek-by-jowl in a thrilling game of cat and mouse. From the elitist members of the Colditz Bullingdon Club to America''s oldest paratrooper and least successful secret agent, the soldier-prisoners of Colditz were courageous and resilient as well as vulnerable and fearful -- and astonishingly imaginative in their desperate escape attempts. Deeply researched and full of incredible human stories, this is the definitive book on Colditz.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Prisoners in the Castle, a dramatic portrait of the master thief of the nineteenth century: Adam Worth “Fascinating . . . a brisk, lively, colorful biography of an amazing criminal.”—The New York Times (Best Books of the Year) The Victorian era’s most infamous and iconic thief, the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes’s Professor Moriarty, Adam Worth was known as the Napoleon of crime. Suave, cunning, and fearless, Worth learned early that the best way to succeed was to steal. And steal he did. Following a strict code of honor, Worth won the respect of Victorian society. He also aroused its fear by becoming a chilling phantom, mingling undetected with the upper classes, whose valuables he brazenly stole. His most celebrated heist: Gainsborough’s grand portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire—ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales—a painting Worth adored and often slept with for twenty years. With a brilliant gang that included “Piano” Charley, a jewel thief, train robber, and playboy, and “the Scratch” Becker, master forger, Worth secretly ran operations from New York to London, Paris, and South Africa—until betrayal and a Pinkerton man finally brought him down. The Napoleon of Crime is a grand, dazzling tour into the gaslit underworld of the nineteenth century, and into the doomed genius of a criminal mastermind.

Four young British soldiers find themselves trapped behind enemy lines at the height of the fighting on the Western front in August 1914; unable to get back to their units, they shelter in the tiny French village of Villeret. Living in daily fear of capture and execution, they are fed, clothed and protected by the villagers including the local matriarch, Madame Dessenne, the baker and his wife.

Agent Zigzag: 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. Operation Mincemeat: 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. Double Cross: 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.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “master storyteller” (San Francisco Chronicle) behind the New York Times bestseller The Spy and the Traitor uncovers the true story behind one of the Cold War’s most intrepid spies. “[An] immensely exciting, fast-moving account.”—The Washington Post ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Foreign Affairs, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal In 1942, in a quiet village in the leafy English Cotswolds, a thin, elegant woman lived in a small cottage with her three children and her husband, who worked as a machinist nearby. Ursula Burton was friendly but reserved, and spoke English with a slight foreign accent. By all accounts, she seemed to be living a simple, unassuming life. Her neighbors in the village knew little about her. They didn’t know that she was a high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer. They didn’t know that her husband was also a spy, or that she was running powerful agents across Europe. Behind the facade of her picturesque life, Burton was a dedicated Communist, a Soviet colonel, and a veteran agent, gathering the scientific secrets that would enable the Soviet Union to build the bomb. This true-life spy story is a masterpiece about the woman code-named “Sonya.” Over the course of her career, she was hunted by the Chinese, the Japanese, the Nazis, MI5, MI6, and the FBI—and she evaded them all. Her story reflects the great ideological clash of the twentieth century—between Communism, Fascism, and Western democracy—and casts new light on the spy battles and shifting allegiances of our own times. With unparalleled access to Sonya’s diaries and correspondence and never-before-seen information on her clandestine activities, Ben Macintyre has conjured a page-turning history of a legendary secret agent, a woman who influenced the course of the Cold War and helped plunge the world into a decades-long standoff between nuclear superpowers.

A brilliant, seat-of-your-pants hostage-taking and daring SAS rescue mission of the Iran Embassy in London in 1980, this is Ben Macintyre at the very height of his story-telling powers. On April 30, 1980, six heavily armed gunmen burst into the Iranian embassy on Prince’s Gate, overlooking Hyde Park in London. There, they took 26 hostages, including embassy staff, visitors, and three British citizens. A tense six-day siege ensued—all on television, over a Bank Holiday weekend—in which police negotiators and psychiatrists sought a bloodless end to the standoff, while the SAS laid plans for a daring rescue mission: Operation Nimrod. This mission marked a fundamental turning point in global history, when Middle Eastern terrorism arrived in the West. Britain had experienced IRA terrorism before, but never an international terrorist incident on this scale. It was a precursor to the brutal Iran-Iraq War that would follow, in which millions perished. Yet there exists to this day no full account of the week-long siege and gripping rescue. Drawing on interviews with police, hostages, terrorists and key SAS figures, and cutting through the sensationalism and misinformation, bestselling historian Ben Macintyre (author of Sunday Times #1s Colditz, The Spy and the Traitor and SAS: Rogue Heroes) goes deep into the archives with exclusive access to tell the story of what really happened and give the first definitive account of a moment that forever changed the way the nation thought about the SAS—and itself.

Agent Zigzag and Operation Mincemeat, two thrilling accounts of World War II espionage, are available together as an ebook—with an excerpt from the New York Times bestseller Double Cross. “Not since Ian Fleming and John le Carré has a spy writer so captivated readers.”—The Hollywood Reporter AGENT ZIGZAG • “Wildly improbably but entirely true . . . [a] compellingly cinematic spy thriller with verve.”—Entertainment Weekly Eddie Chapman was a charming criminal, a con man, and a philanderer. He was also one of the most remarkable double agents Britain has ever produced. Inside the traitor was a man of loyalty; inside the villain was a hero. The problem for Chapman, his spymasters, and his lovers was to know where one persona ended and the other began. Based on recently declassified files, Agent Zigzag tells Chapman’s full story for the first time. It’s a gripping tale of loyalty, love, treachery, espionage, and the thin and shifting line between fidelity and betrayal. OPERATION MINCEMEANT • “Brilliant and almost absurdly entertaining.”—The New Yorker Near the end of World War II, two British naval officers came up with a brilliant and slightly mad scheme to mislead the Nazi armies about where the Allies would attack southern Europe. To carry out the plan, they would have to rely on the most unlikely of secret agents: a dead man. Ben Macintyre’s dazzling, critically acclaimed bestseller chronicles the extraordinary story of what happened after British officials planted this dead body—outfitted in a British military uniform with a briefcase containing false intelligence documents—in Nazi territory, and how this secret mission fooled Hitler into changing military positioning, paving the way for the Allies to overtake the Nazis.

A “remarkable” (The New York Times Book Review) account of four British soldiers forced into hiding in a French village during World War I, and the mystery left behind in their wake—from the bestselling author of The Spy and the Traitor and The Siege. “Gripping, illuminating . . . Everything comes alive . . . the feuds, the village characters [and] the hunger of the winter of 1914.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review In the first terrifying days of World War I, four British soldiers found themselves trapped behind enemy lines on the western front. They were forced to hide in the tiny French village of Villeret, whose inhabitants made the courageous decision to shelter the fugitives until they could pass as Picard peasants. This is the never-before-told story of these extraordinary men, their protectors, and of the haunting love affair between Private Robert Digby and Claire Dessenne, the most beautiful woman in Villeret. Their passion would result in the birth of a child known as “The Englishman’s Daughter,” and in an act of unspeakable betrayal, a tragic legacy that would haunt the village for generations to come. Through the testimonies of the villagers and the last letters of the soldiers, New York Times bestselling author Ben Macintyre has pieced together a harrowing account of how life was lived behind enemy lines during the Great War, and offers a compelling solution to a gripping mystery that reverberates to this day.

This is the story of Josiah Harlan, the American adventurer who forged his own kingdom in Afghanistan during the nineteenth century and subsequently became the inspiration for Kipling''s ''The Man Who Would Be King.''.

A riveting look into the world of James Bond and his creator.

''A sprinkling of delightful nuggets about the uses and abuses of the English Language'' Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year ''[There are] myriad delights in Ben Macintyre''s musings on language'' The Times, Books of the Year _____________________ Do you know your geek-speak from your geek-chic? Ever wanted to put Humpty Dumpty together again? Can you distinguish Spanglish from Chinglish? We adapt words from other languages, from slang, from developments in science, literature and art. Learn the advantages of having your own signature word; why the lifts in the House of Commons have posh accents; and discover the discreet art of the loophemism. Witty and utterly delightful, The Last Word will tease, tickle and tantalise those who enjoy all things lexical.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The incredible untold story of World War II’s greatest secret fighting force, as told by the modern master of wartime intrigue—now a limited series on Epix! “Reads like a mashup of The Dirty Dozen and The Great Escape, with a sprinkling of Ocean’s 11 thrown in for good measure.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times ONE OF NPR’S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • “Rogue Heroes is a ripping good read.”—Washington Post (10 Best Books of the Year) Britain’s Special Air Service—or SAS—was the brainchild of David Stirling, a young aristocrat whose aimlessness belied a remarkable strategic mind. Where most of his colleagues looked at a World War II battlefield map and saw a protracted struggle, Stirling saw an opportunity: given a small number of elite men, he could parachute behind Nazi lines and sabotage their airplanes and supplies. Defying his superiors’ conventional wisdom, Stirling assembled a revolutionary fighting force that would upend not just the balance of the war, but the nature of combat itself. Bringing his keen eye for detail to a riveting wartime narrative, Ben Macintyre uses his unprecedented access to the SAS archives to shine a light on a legendary unit long shrouded in secrecy.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “entertaining [and] often-moving account” (The Wall Street Journal) of the remarkable POWs whose relentlessly creative attempts to escape a notorious Nazi prison embodied the spirit of resistance against fascism, from the author of The Spy and the Traitor “Macintyre has a knack for finding the most fascinating story lines in history.”—David Grann, author of The Wager and Killers of the Flower Moon In this gripping narrative, Ben Macintyre tackles one of the most famous prison stories in history and makes it utterly his own. During World War II, the German army used the towering Colditz Castle to hold the most defiant Allied prisoners. For four years, these prisoners of the castle tested its walls and its guards with ingenious escape attempts that would become legend. But as Macintyre shows, the story of Colditz was about much more than escape. Its population represented a society in miniature, full of heroes and traitors, class conflicts and secret alliances, and the full range of human joy and despair. In Macintyre’s telling, Colditz’s most famous names—like the indomitable Pat Reid—share glory with lesser known but equally remarkable characters like Indian doctor Birendranath Mazumdar whose ill treatment, hunger strike, and eventual escape read like fiction; Florimond Duke, America’s oldest paratrooper and least successful secret agent; and Christopher Clayton Hutton, the brilliant inventor employed by British intelligence to manufacture covert escape aids for POWs. Prisoners of the Castle traces the war’s arc from within Colditz’s stone walls, where the stakes rose as Hitler’s war machine faltered and the men feared that liberation would not come soon enough to spare them a grisly fate at the hands of the Nazis. Bringing together the wartime intrigue of his acclaimed Operation Mincemeat and keen psychological portraits of his bestselling true-life spy stories, Macintyre has breathed new life into one of the greatest war stories ever told.

Överste Oleg Gordievskij var på toppen av sin karriär. 46 år gammal hade han blivit befordrad till drömpositionen på KGB:s Londonkontor och inbjuden till högkvarteret i Moskva för att formellt bli krönt som chef över hela KGB. När han anlände till Moskva vandrade Gordievskij självsäkert genom flygplatsens säkerhetskontroll. Inombords kände han dock en djup oro – KGB-veteranen Gordievskij, Sovjetunionens trogne hemlige tjänare, var nämligen brittisk spion. Den internationellt bästsäljande författaren Ben Macintyre skriver i Spion & förrädare om det djärvaste kapitlet i spionagets historia. Det är en berättelse om svek, dubbelspel och dristighet som ändrade kalla krigets riktning för alltid.

Due agenti segreti inglesi di mezz’età sorseggiano tè in un appartamento nel quartiere cristiano di Beirut. Sono stati amici per trent’anni, ora sono diventati mortali nemici. Entrambi mentono, uno vuole che l’altro confessi. Si apre cosí, come un romanzo di Le Carré, Una spia tra noi, l’incredibile storia vera di Kim Philby, l’agente segreto che fu a capo del controspionaggio britannico contro l’Unione Sovietica nell’immediato dopoguerra, ma che passò alla Storia per il piú clamoroso tradimento che coinvolse, e sconvolse, l’Occidente. Nessuno credeva di conoscere Philby meglio di Nicholas Elliott, collega dell’MI 6: avevano frequentato le stesse scuole, appartenevano agli stessi circoli esclusivi, il loro rapporto si era cementato col lavoro di intelligence durante il conflitto e le lunghe notti di bevute e baldoria. Mai Elliott avrebbe pensato che Philby potesse essere una spia comunista, decisa a sovvertire a ogni costo l’ordine del mondo libero. Invece, tutti i giorni per trent’anni, ogni parola che Elliott gli aveva sussurrato era stata ritrasmessa a Mosca. Ma Philby aveva stretto un legame anche con un altro astro nascente dell’intelligence mondiale, ovvero James Jesus Angleton, l’astuto e paranoico capo del controspionaggio della CIA. Per decenni, le inconsapevoli rivelazioni di Angleton ed Elliott aiutarono Philby ad affondare quasi tutte le piú importanti operazioni di intelligence del Patto atlantico, condannando innumerevoli agenti a un triste destino. E quando la rete del sospetto cominciò a chiudersi intorno a Philby, costringendolo a un sistema sempre piú complesso di menzogne, Elliott cercò comunque un ultimo, drammatico confronto. Basato su documenti e file inediti dell’intelligence britannica, Una spia tra noi è una storia di lealtà e di inganni, di ideali e di coscienza, di amicizie forgiate e tradite in circostanze eccezionali, il racconto appassionante dell’ultimo grande segreto della Guerra fredda. «Una lettura superba, illuminante» Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker «Avvincente e ben realizzato come un episodio di Tutti gli uomini di Smiley, pieno di cinismo, segreti, omicidi e litri di whisky» Kirkus Reviews «Macintyre scrive con il piglio del narratore nato. Degno del miglior John le Carré» John Banville «Come un thriller di spionaggio, in cui però ogni incredibile dettaglio è reale» The Observer

All''alba del 10 luglio 1943 le truppe alleate sbarcarono in Sicilia nel primo attacco alla "Fortezza Europa" in mano a Hitler. Un attacco destinato ad avere un grande successo e ad aprire una nuova, cruciale fase nelle operazioni belliche.

En frostklar vinterdag i januar 1966 lander en ung russisk diplomat og hans kone i København. Mandens navn er Oleg Gordijevskij, og officielt er han ansat ved den sovjetiske ambassade. Men i virkeligheden er han KGB-officer, toptrænet i spionage mod vesten. Sådan begynder et ekstraordinært kapitel af spionagens historie. Opholdet i Danmark og mødet med vestlig kultur sætter et ideologisk skred i gang i Gordijevskij, som ender med at “hoppe af” til vesten. I mere end et årti viderebringer han hemmeligheder fra hjertet af den sovjetiske efterretningstjeneste til britiske MI6- agenter i København og London. Oplysninger, der bidrager til at afværge atomkrig og ændrer den kolde krigs gang. I Spionen og forræderen fører britiske Ben Macintyre læseren ind i en verden af bedrag og forræderi, hemmelige dokumenter og skjulte signaler. Det er en utrolig, men sandfærdig historie om en enkelt mands store indsats på et kritisk tidspunkt i verdenshistorien.

Philby est sans aucun doute l’espion le plus célèbre et le plus scandaleux du XXe siècle. Ce livre, basé sur des lettres personnelles, des journaux intimes, des interviews ainsi que sur des archives déclassées des services secrets britanniques, américains et soviétiques, retrace le parcours d’une vie qui fut... une perpétuelle trahison. L’Espion qui trahissait ses amis retrace avec force détails, et dans un style purement narratif qui fait penser aux romans de John Le Carré, l’histoire rocambolesque de Kim Philby, sur fond de guerre, puis de guerre froide. Un personnage double dans les faits et dans la psychologie, à la fois responsable de la mort de milliers de personnes à travers le monde et grand séducteur. L’Espion qui trahissait ses amis se lit d’une traite, comme un roman. C’est une histoire d’espionnage palpitante, aussi intense et intrigante qu’un thriller, digne de Graham Greene ou John Le Carré. Mais c’est aussi, on l’oublierait presque, une histoire vraie solidement documentée sur le parcours rocambolesque de Kim Philby depuis la Seconde Guerre mondiale jusqu’à la fin de la guerre froide, et sur son amitié tragique avec Nicholas Elliott. Une amitié extraordinaire entre deux êtres viscéralement liés mais que l’idéologie séparera toute leur vie : Nicholas Elliott, maître espion britannique, sera aussi fidèle à son pays que Philby, le sublime traître, le sera à l’Union soviétique. Ben Macintyre est un conteur-né et sa description de l’univers des espions est aussi fine qu’hilarante : en pénétrant les arcanes des services de renseignement britanniques, le lecteur découvrira une galerie de portraits hauts en couleurs sur fond d’establishment et de beuveries monumentales. Anecdotes et grande Histoire se mêlent astucieusement au fil du récit pour donner lieu à une brillante combinaison de connaissances et de divertissement. Au final, ce livre merveilleusement ficelé n’est peut-être pas le dernier sur le « phénomène Philby », mais à travers le prisme de l’amitié et de la loyauté bafouées, il offre une nouvelle compréhension psychologique de l’espion le plus remarquable des temps modernes. Ce livre est la traduction française du best seller A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal A propos de l''auteur Ben Macintyre est chroniqueur et rédacteur en chef adjoint du Times, journal pour lequel il a également été correspondant à Paris, New York et Washington. Il a étudié l’histoire à Cambridge et est l’auteur de précédents livres d’histoire narrative à succès dont Opération Mincemeat et Les Espions du Débarquement. Un livre publié par Ixelles éditions Visitez notre site : http://www.ixelles-editions.com Contactez-nous à l''adresse [email protected]

Reconstructie van een misleidingsoperatie tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog van de Britse geheime dienst, bedoeld om de aandacht van de Duitsers af te leiden van een voorgenomen inval op Sicilië.