Ben Macintyre

Meet and dine with Ben Macintyre, author of A Spy Among Friends at grano on Tuesday, August 12, 2014. Cocktails at 6:30 pm, dinner at 7:00 pm.

Tickets are $100 per person (includes full meal with wine, a signed copy of the book, and all taxes). Please call us at (416) 361-0032 to purchase tickets, or send an e-mail to ben@benmcnallybooks.com.

A Spy Among Friends, Ben Macintyre's thrillingly ambitious new book, tackles the greatest spy story of all: the rise and fall of Kim Philby, MI6's Cambridge-bred golden boy who used his perch high in the intelligence world to betray friend and country to the Soviet Union for over two decades. In Macintyre's telling, Philby's story is not a tale of one spy, but of three: the story of his complex friendships with fellow Englishman operative Nicholas Elliott and with the American James Jesus Angleton, who became one of the most powerful men in the CIA. These men came up together, shared the same background, went to the same schools and clubs, and served the same cause--or so Elliott and Angleton thought. In reality, Philby was channeling all of their confidences directly to his Soviet handlers, sinking almost every great Anglo-American spy operation for twenty years. Even as the web of suspicion closed around him, and Philby was driven to greater lies and obfuscations to protect his secret, Angleton and Elliott never abandoned him. When Philby's true master was finally revealed with his defection to Moscow in 1963, it would have profound and devastating consequences on these men who thought they knew him best, and the intelligence services they helped to build.

This remarkable story, told with heart-pounding suspense and keen psychological insight, and based on personal papers and never-before-seen British intelligence files, is Ben Macintyre's best book yet, and a high-water mark in Cold War history telling. (Jenni_Canuck)… (més)

Jeffreys Brain Food Book Club
Double Cross: the true story of the D-Day spies - Ben Macintyre
D-Day, 6 June 1944, the turning point of the Second World War, was a victory of arms. But it was also a triumph for a different kind of operation: one of deceit... At the heart of the deception was the 'Double Cross System', a team of double agents whose bravery, treachery, greed and inspiration succeeded in convincing the Nazis that Calais and Norway, not Normandy, were the targets of the 150,000-strong Allied invasion force. These were not conventional warriors, but their masterpiece of deceit saved thousands of lives. Their codenames were Bronx, Brutus, Treasure, Tricycle and Garbo. This is their story.

11am Wednesday 20 February. Purchase the book to reserve your place. (rodneyvc)… (més)

Roland Chambers, The Last Englishman: The Double Life of Arthur Ransome.; Ben Macintyre, Agent Zigzag. A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal.

Roland Chambers' The Last Englishman explores the astonishing double-life of Arthur Ransome, writer of the nostalgic Swallows and Amazons, communist sympathiser, lover of Trotsky's secretary and a spy in Russia. Ben Macintyre, author of the acclaimed Agent Zigzag, tells the story of one of World War II's most audacious hoaxes, Operation Mincemeat, which duped the Germans with a corpse bearing fictional military plans. They discuss the British talent for espionage and deception, from Marlow in the 16th century to Ian Fleming (an officer in the department that devised Operation Mincemeat) in the 20th. (DeadGoodBooks)… (més)