TAKE NINE SPIES

by Fitzroy Maclean ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 11, 1978

Lightly sketched are the lives and shady doings of nine modern spies: Mata Hari; Kim Philby; Oleg Penkovski, a Soviet colonel turned British informer; Alfred Redl, Austro-Hungarian intelligence whiz; agile Yevno Azef, who worked for the Russian Revolution while acting as a police informer; Richard Serge; ""Cicero,"" the valet of the British ambassador in Ankara who sold WW II military secrets to the Germans (who paid him but never used the information); Gordon Lonsdale, the ladies' man who peddled British naval secrets to the Russians; and ""William Martin,"" really a corpse carrying false British identification and phony secrets who ""fell"" into German hands and misled them about Operation Mincemeat in Sicily. Despite his first-hand knowledge of high-echelon activities, Maclean--a former British Under-Secretary of War--admits that ""I cannot really claim any very special knowledge of or insight into my subject. Espionage is something I have always been careful to keep clear of."" And it shows here, since the book could have been written by anyone with a moderately good library at hand. Most of these spies, if not all, have been written about better elsewhere, so the present skim will not satisfy a real buff. But we must grant Maclean his urbane tale-spinning, his swift hugger-mugger and amusing flashes, despite the thinness of his spyboiler.

Pub Date: Sept. 11, 1978

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1978

Categories: NONFICTION