This is a great audio book and excellently narrated by John Lee. I wasn't sure about the entertainment value at first thinking it was going to be a play by play history lesson of WW2, however the book quickly goes into the quirky and eccentric personalities of the British Secret Agents. Some of the agents come from several other countries too.
It's amazing how much the one agent named Popov (Yes, like the Vodka brand) was able to almost effortlessly fool the Germans with fake Allied battle plans and connections. He was able to play them soo much AND demand a lot of money from them. It almost seemed like the more money he asked from them, the more they believed him. He also demanded a huge sum of money from the British as well, so much so that they started to get angry and limit the amount they gave him. Like in Yojimbo he played both sides. His living expenses were extravagant and excessive, from fine wines and whiskey to expensive cigars and cars. Popov was also known as an excessive ladies man as well, staying single and dating women much younger then him.
There is also a female agent who unfortunately lost her dog at customs through more or less the fault of her British contact. She was promised to get the dog back but was unable to get it back due to quarantine regulations at the time. She ends up hold a huge grudge against the British and withholds information from them.
You would think there would be close calls, such as some of the agents being found out and held at gunpoint but I assure you that is mostly the Hollywood stuff we think up in our heads. Most of the drama unfolds behind the scenes about what information travels from the agent to the British. There is a scene where a German officer tests the loyalty of one of the agents and order him to come back to Berlin after going into allied territory. There's a bit of suspense there but nothing too bad.
It's mostly the back and forth between the information and dealing with the egos and eccentricity of the agents. The suspense is if one of their agents gets found out, the others would most assuredly be questioned and possibly killed. So its the information that the fake British give the Germans that has to seem real enough to them otherwise the whole thing falls through.
The afterward is intriguing as well, you find out what happened to some of the agents after the war. One of them moved to my home state of Michigan to live a peaceful life. One the agents was awarded $5000 by the British government so as to not go into complete debt.
The narrator, has a superb control over the French and Polish names and accents. He goes into the accented characters flawlessly while reading but keeps a fast paced excited flow. His own English voice sounds very interested in what he's saying, definitely not asleep at the wheel.
I recommend listening or read this after reading fiction, it's a nice change of pace and very interesting.
Double Cross
by Ben Macintyre
8.5 out of 10
