I Was A Spy

ÒThe Greatest War Story of All Ð Takes rank with All Quiet on the Western Front. She fulfilled in every respect the conditions which made the terrible profession of a spy dignified and honourable. Dwelling behind the German line within sound of cannon, she continually obtained and sent information of the highest importance to the British Intelligence Authorities. Her tale is a thrilling one É the main description of her life and intrigues and adventures is undoubtedly authentic. I was unable to stop reading it until 4 a.m.Ó Winston Churchill 1932 With her medical studies cut short by the 1914 German invasion, her house burned down and her father arrested for suspected ÔsharpshootingÕ, it was perhaps unsurprising that the multi-lingual Marthe Mckenna (nŽe Cnockaert, codename ÔLauraÕ) was recruited by British Intelligence. At the time she worked as a nurse tending the wounds of occupying soldiers, and as a waitress in her parentsÕ cafŽ in the Belgian border town of Roulers. I Was a Spy! is McKennaÕs vivid narrative of these breathtaking adventures as she, aided by a gallant band of loyal locals, goes undercover to sabotage enemy phone lines, report suspicious activity or train movements, and even instigate an aerial attack on a planned visit by the Kaiser. This thrilling account goes on to explain how, in 1916, the young nurse was caught by the Germans placing dynamite in a disused sewer tunnel underneath an ammunition dump. She was sentenced to the firing squad and only survived due to the Iron Cross honor received as a result of her earlier medical service . Mckenna was later mentioned by Douglas Haig in British Despatches and was awarded the French and Belgian Orders of the Legion of Honour for her espionage work.

From the award-winning author of The Great Trouble comes a story of espionage, survival, and friendship during World War II. Bertie Bradshaw never set out to become a spy. He never imagined traipsing around war-torn London, solving ciphers, practicing surveillance, and searching for a traitor to the Allied forces. He certainly never expected that a strong-willed American girl named Eleanor would play Watson to his Holmes (or Holmes to his Watson, depending on who you ask). But when a young woman goes missing, leaving behind a coded notebook, Bertie is determined to solve the mystery. With the help of Eleanor and his friend David, a Jewish refugee--and, of course, his trusty pup, Little Roo--Bertie must decipher the notebook in time to stop a double agent from spilling the biggest secret of all to the Nazis. From the author of The Great Trouble, this suspenseful WWII adventure reminds us that times of war call for bravery, brains and teamwork from even the most unlikely heroes.

An American-born boy grew up in a small village on the Greek island of Crete. In his last year in high school, he witnessed the German invasion of Crete, in May of 1941, during the early days of WW II. At the age of eighteen, he joined a resistance group headed by his brother, and supplied crucial information to the SOE, the arm of the English Intelligence Service. This resistance group is uncovered, resulting in their hasty evacuation by the SOE, to Cairo, Egypt. In Cairo, the author and his brother were asked to join the English Intelligence Service, but rather, pursued the American OSS, or Office of Strategic Services, the newly formed American intelligence counterpart. They were enlisted into the US Army, and attached to the OSS, where the author was trained in the SI, or Secret Intelligence sector, which included parachute jumping, wireless/Morse code training, commando/defense training, locks/safe-cracking techniques, escape methods, and environment assimilation techniques. After being transformed into a skilled spy, the author was sent back to Greece undercover, and along with a Greek naval intelligence officer, set up a communications cell in Salonica, Greece s second largest city, whereby daily coded messages to OSS Headquarters in Cairo were sent. One such message describes the course of events surrounding the bombing of the main railroad yard in Salonica, and the loss of thousands of German troops, as well as recalling the near-capture encounters with the German Gestapo and the Greek police. The author also recounts his personal experiences of his escape from Crete through the mountains, the evacuations by an English torpedo boat, his OSS training, the return mission to Greece, and his final return to the United States.

This autobiographical film history provides recounts Saville's experience on the Western Front during World War I and includes stories of filmmaking in Britain and America during the transition from silent to sound cinema, and then from black-and-white to color. It also gives a glimpse into Hollywood as it existed in the late 1930s and early 1940s, emphasizing Saville's work with stars like Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner, Elizabeth Taylor, Errol Flynn, and Paul Newman. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Now a major motion picture starring Paul Rudd “A delightful book that recounts one of the strangest episodes in the history of espionage. . . . . Relentlessly entertaining.”—The New York Times Book Review Moe Berg is the only major-league baseball player whose baseball card is on display at the headquarters of the CIA. For Berg was much more than a third-string catcher who played on several major league teams between 1923 and 1939. Educated at Princeton and the Sorbonne, he as reputed to speak a dozen languages (although it was also said he couldn't hit in any of them) and went on to become an OSS spy in Europe during World War II. As Nicholas Dawidoff follows Berg from his claustrophobic childhood through his glamorous (though equivocal) careers in sports and espionage and into the long, nomadic years during which he lived on the hospitality of such scattered acquaintances as Joe DiMaggio and Albert Einstein, he succeeds not only in establishing where Berg went, but who he was beneath his layers of carefully constructed cover. As engrossing as a novel by John le Carré, The Catcher Was a Spy is a triumphant work of historical and psychological detection.

I was no James Bond with a licence to kill, but I worked with the British intelligence services and with, and for, the CIA. I had guns pointed at me, death threats issued, a price placed on my head. In 1971, Rod Barton applied for a junior scientist role in the Australian Department of Defence. Little did he know what it entailed: as the Cold War intensified, Barton was inducted into the murky world of espionage. For the next few decades, Barton lived a life straight from an adventure novel. In war-torn Mogadishu, he disarmed militia, while sleeping in rat-infested barracks. As a UN weapons inspector, he flew to Baghdad on special missions, interviewing top scientists to uncover an illegal weapons program, and raced across Europe, tracking materials sold to the Iraqis. After the disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq, the CIA engaged him as its special adviser in the hunt for Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. But he soon clashed with the agency over what he saw – and what he didn’t find. It prompted him to step from the shadows and share the truth with the world, and to tussle with the Australian government. This is an extraordinary behind-the-scenes account of a world marked by risk, secrecy and individual acts of courage. Written with passion, humour and candour, The Life of a Spy will introduce you to a man of principle in a time of chaos, and take you to the frontlines of politics and war. ‘No Australian intelligence officer in recent times has been closer to the centre of world affairs than Barton, or better placed to observe the intense political pressures applied, from all sides, on those searching for Saddam Hussein’s elusive weapons of mass destruction.’ —Robert Manne

As Katherine Verdery observes, "There's nothing like reading your secret police file to make you wonder who you really are." In 1973 Verdery began her doctoral fieldwork in the Transylvanian region of Romania, ruled at the time by communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. She returned several times over the next twenty-five years, during which time the secret police—the Securitate—compiled a massive surveillance file on her. Reading through its 2,781 pages, she learned that she was "actually" a spy, a CIA agent, a Hungarian agitator, and a friend of dissidents: in short, an enemy of Romania. In My Life as a Spy she analyzes her file alongside her original field notes and conversations with Securitate officers. Verdery also talks with some of the informers who were close friends, learning the complex circumstances that led them to report on her, and considers how fieldwork and spying can be easily confused. Part memoir, part detective story, part anthropological analysis, My Life as a Spy offers a personal account of how government surveillance worked during the Cold War and how Verdery experienced living under it.

In Spy Runner, a noir mystery middle grade novel from Newbery Honor author Eugene Yelchin, a boy stumbles upon a secret that jeopardizes American national security. It's 1953 and the Cold War is on. Communism threatens all that the United States stands for, and America needs every patriot to do their part. So when a Russian boarder moves into the home of twelve-year-old Jake McCauley, he's on high alert. What does the mysterious Mr. Shubin do with all that photography equipment? And why did he choose to live so close to the Air Force base? Jake’s mother says that Mr. Shubin knew Jake’s dad, who went missing in action during World War II. But Jake is skeptical; the facts just don’t add up. And he’s determined to discover the truth—no matter what he risks. Godwin Books