Double Cross

By Ben Macintyre

Double Cross - Ben Macintyre
  • Release Date: 2012-07-31
  • Genre: History
Score: 4
4
From 260 Ratings

Description

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.

Reviews

  • The art of planting

    5
    By Job11
    The seedy side of planting seed
  • Extrordinary

    5
    By JJDUNBERG
    I thought I was pretty well versed in the machinations leading up to the invasion, but I clearly knew nothing whatever. This reads like a Clancy novel but is so much richer, more nuanced, and it’s all true. Characters like these would test credibility in fiction. The fact that they were all as eccentric and talented as they were creates a sense of wonder.
  • Truly great!

    5
    By A.Long
    If they taught history the way Ben Macintyre and Kenneth Davis write about it.Things would improve dramatically and proving that history when told right is both compelling and stranger than any fiction that Hollywood could dream up.