William Stevenson (1) (1924–2013)

Knowing I enjoy espionage novels, my neighbour lent me this classic true story. It became the first five-star read of the year.

When searching for a man to help bring the Americans into the war Churchill said that man must be not just fearless, or dauntless, but intrepid! William Stephenson was that man. Among other unfamiliar topics, I learned about Camp X, the fascinating top secret spy training centre in Canada. Stephenson developed a talent for recruiting agents, Sir Noel Coward among show more others, and asked diplomat Lester B. Pearson (future prime minister of Canada) to become a “King’s messenger” conveying secret documents across the Atlantic. A quote from Pearson’s autobiography relates the danger and unexpected risks involved. Ian Fleming worked closely with Stephenson and trained at Camp X. He later admitted that many of the devices portrayed in his James Bond series were derived from Intrepid’s operations. This is a terrific book, well written and interesting throughout: one of the best non-fiction books I’ve read about WWII. show less

Vera Atkins was a spy for the British during World War II. She was apparently quite forgotten in the history books until this attempt to rectify that. However, IMO, this book went into entirely too much detail and needed serious editing. The clarity for an average reader was difficult to manage - too many code names, etc. to keep track of.

I'm certain that Ms. Atkins' efforts during the war were extraordinary, however, IMO, this book was not.

After his Arab homeland is devastated by American bombs and missiles, Colonel Zin Bel-el-bey Gabbiya offers himself as a target in a bizarre plot to bring the "American Satan" to its knees. Only Pete Casey, ex-Vietnam pilot stands between the Middle Eastern madman and global chaos.

This is a tough book to review. The book is absolutely all over the place. There is very little structure to the book. Even within chapters, the author is just all over the place. The book starts out as almost a semi-spi novel, and then swings into a regular non-fiction book. It is surreal at times. The main substance of the book is the fate of Martin Bormann. The author gives an incredible number of possible scenarios of his fate (too many to even think of listing here). The author also show more delves into the fates of many other ex-SS and ex-Nazi's. Some of that information was very revealing, but what really made me to continually shake my head, was the authors complete and total lack of foot notes! He quotes some incredible information, but yet one has no idea where this information came from. Absolutely incredible. The author makes some really incredible claims about Hitler, and yet we have no idea where the author came up with the info. What was the most interesting portion of the book was the author deep look at the spy within Hitler's inner circle, and I think he covers this fairly well. In fact, he left me with a desire to dig into this more in depth. That being said, the next books I will be reading is the Mueller Journals! (whether they are legit or not-- I will hopefully find out after reading them). Overall, this book is mess. I think there are definitely better books out there that will cover this material in a much more scholarly way. show less