by Chapman Pincher ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 7, 2009
Occasionally tiresome, but Pincher provides a comprehensive, almost irrefutable indictment.
A British military-intelligence specialist exhaustively recounts his country’s woeful 60-year record countering Soviet spying.
Espionage expert Pincher (The Spycatcher Affair, 1988, etc.) digs deep to prove that Roger Hollis, who served from 1936 to 1965 in Britain’s MI-5, was really a Russian agent, code-named “Elli.” Drawing on recently opened Soviet archives, the vast literature recounting British counterintelligence failures and a lifetime of high-level sources developed in England and America, Pincher compiles a damning, if circumstantial, dossier against Hollis, whose lengthy career spans a time made notorious by a number of traitorous names. They include the so-called Cambridge Five—Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt, John Cairncross, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess—atomic spy Klaus Fuchs and disgraced cabinet minister John Profumo, whose liaison with model Christine Keeler brought down Harold Macmillan’s government. Pincher also deals with numerous, less well-known characters, notably Ursula Hamburger, or “Sonia,” “the most influential female secret agent of all time.” The author’s surfeit of detail, roll call of shady characters and catalogue of outrageous episodes, misdeeds, deceptions, lies and cover-ups have two effects. First, they underscore Pincher’s immense authority and the overwhelming evidence against Hollis; second, they weary all but the most intensely interested readers. Still, the Hollis matter has for the Brits the same fascination—and features the same furious contention—as the Alger Hiss case once held for Americans. After this book, Hollis’s defenders will be reduced to ascribing the staggering number of documented failures on his watch “merely” to spectacular negligence.
Occasionally tiresome, but Pincher provides a comprehensive, almost irrefutable indictment.Pub Date: July 7, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6807-4
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2009
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by William Strunk & E.B. White ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1972
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis
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