Quite a maverick take on the Culper ring which brought about the British downfall during the war of American Independence. Why I mention maverick is because Kilmeade takes the liberty of fictionalizing the (presumable) dialogue which transpired at the time with relevant (presumably) colloquialism inserted into the right places. Overall though I found this book to be lucid and thoroughly entertaining. 101% amazing. It kept me sane during the lockdown. ( )

This was a very nice read for me. I had seen it around in bookstores, but hadn’t actually gotten it until this past Christmas as one of my (many) history-related presents. It was a very quick, easy, and fun read, and it was interesting to learn some of the real facts behind my favorite historical drama show, “Turn: Washington’s Spies” (I am planning on reading the book that it’s based on, Alexander Rose’s Washington’s Spies in the near future). I highly recommend this if you need something to read about the American Revolution. ( )

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Struggle to finish this one. But I'm glad I did. ( )

American Revolutionary War, spies, espionage, military history, use of archives, New York/Long Island/Connecticut history..it's all there. I grew up hearing about the Culper Spy Ring but I still learned something new; and I want to know more about the Lady spy (seems archival materials are lacking about her). ( )

I picked this up at the library because I thought it sounded interesting, and I learned a lot, considering that I didn’t know about the Culpeper ring at all before this. However, I really wish there was a more substantive version of the book, because it felt rather superficial and the tone was much less academic than I am used to. I understand that including a lot of biographical detail about the agents might not be possible, given that the only female agent in the ring is only known by number to this day (talk about “they’ve given you a number and taken away your name”), and that it took until 1929 to learn the identity of another member. However, surely more historical detail would have been possible. For example, I’d have appreciated a more detailed look at things like the British counterfeiting schemes – such as how they worked and how successful they were. Or learning about a point during the Yorktown naval operations where having the British codebook was crucial to French success. ( )