Agent Zigzag

A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal

By: Ben Macintyre

Narrated by: John Lee

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.

In 1941, after training as a German spy in occupied France, Chapman was orders orders from the Abwehr to blow up an airplane factory in Britain. Instead, he contacted MI5, the British Secret Service. For the next four years, Chapman worked as a double agent, a lone British spy at the heart of the German Secret Service. Crisscrossing Europe under different names, all the while weaving plans, spreading disinformation, and, miraculously, keeping his stories straight under intense interrogation, he even managed to gain some profit and seduce beautiful women along the way.

The Nazis feted Chapman as a hero and awarded him the Iron Cross. In Britain, he was pardoned for his crimes, becoming the only wartime agent to be thus rewarded. Sixty years after the end of the war, and ten years after Chapman’s death, MI5 has now declassified all of Chapman’s files, releasing more than 1,800 pages of top secret material and allowing the full story of Agent Zigzag to be told for the first time.

A Great Read

The saying "Truth is stranger than fiction" fits this story perfectly. Well written and narrated. A must read for the espionage fan.

Unbelievably good

An entertaining telling of one of the most entertaining men who may have ever lived.

Excellent

A riveting true tale. One the most fascinating bios I have ever heard.

This would not

Be believable if it were not a true story. Way better than a lot of fiction - definitely in this years top 10!

conflicting

Great narrator and performance. throughout the book I was struggling to hate Eddie, he is very difficult to dislike even at the start when you actually don't know he will go on to do.
Wonderful suspension.