Operation Mincemeat: The True Spy Story that Changed the Course of World War II

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**Soon to be a major film, starring Colin Firth, Matthew Macfadyen, Kelly Macdonald, Penelope Wilson, Johnny Flynn and Jason Isaacs** A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB SELECTION A SUNDAY TIMES NO. 1 BESTSELLER 'Astonishing ... Sheds riveting new light on this breathtaking plan' Daily Mail 'A rollicking read' Max Hastings, Sunday Times 'Brilliant and almost absurdly entertaining' New Yorker _______________________ April, 1943: a sardine fisherman spots the corpse of a British soldier floating in the sea off the coast of Spain and sets off a train of events that would change the course of the Second World War. Operation Mincemeat was the most successful wartime deception ever attempted, and the strangest. It hoodwinked the Nazi espionage chiefs, sent German troops hurtling in the wrong direction, and saved thousands of lives by deploying a secret agent who was different, in one crucial respect, from any spy before or since: he was dead. His mission: to convince the Germans that instead of attacking Sicily, the Allied armies planned to invade Greece. This is the true story of the most extraordinary deception ever planned by Churchill's spies: an outrageous lie that travelled from a Whitehall basement all the way to Hitler's desk.

BEN MACINTYRE is the multimillion-copy bestselling author of books including Agent Zigzag, shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and the Glaxy British Book Award for Biography of the Year 2008, and Operation Mincemeat, Double Cross, A Spy Among Friends and Agent Sonya. He is a columnist and Associate Editor at The Times, and has worked as the newspaper's correspondent in New York, Paris and Washington. benmacintyre.com

A rollicking read for all those who enjoy a spy story so fanciful that Ian Fleming - himself an officer in Montagu's wartime department - would never have dared to invent it -- Max Hastings * Sunday Times * Astonishing ... Sheds riveting new light on this breathtaking plan * Daily Mail * Ben Macintyre, also the author of the acclaimed Agent Zigzag, is fast becoming a one-man industry in these updated tales of cunning, bravery and skulduggery. With his mix of meticulous research and a good hack's eye for narrative, it is hard to think of a better guide to keep beckoning us back to that fascinating world * Observer * Macintyre has a journalist's nose for a great story, and a novelist's skill in its narration ... Even more spellbinding than his previous story of wartime espionage, Agent Zigzag, with a cast-list every bit as dotty and colourful ... Macintyre is a master of the thumbnail character sketch * Mail on Sunday * With its fantastic plot and its cast of eccentric characters, the book reads like the most improbable of spy stories. It is a tribute to Macintyre's skill that we never for a moment forget that it is actually all true * Daily Telegraph * Brilliant and almost absurdly entertaining -- Malcolm Gladwell * New Yorker *