In my last espionage blog, I began my interview with Ben Macintyre, a writer-at-large and associate editor of the London Times, who wrote a fascinating book about Eddie Chapman: crook, philanderer and double agent in World War II.

Wanted by the police for a safecracking job in Scotland prior to the start of World War II, Chapman fled to the Island of Jersey. The Nazis captured Jersey in 1939 and imprisoned Chapman. An accomplished con man as well as a safecracker, Chapman convinced the Abwehr, the German foreign intelligence service, that he would make a fine spy for them.

The Abwehr trained Chapman in wireless radio, codes, explosives and other spy tradecraft. Chapman parachuted back into Great Britain in 1941 with orders to destroy an airplane factory.

Once on the ground, Chapman quickly turned himself in to MI5, the British Security Service. For the rest of the war, Chapman operated as a double agent. He ended the war with a German Iron Cross and a British pardon for his pre-war crimes.

Ben Macintyre’s Agent ZigZag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love and Betrayal tells the amazing story of Chapman’s double life as a Nazi spy and British agent.

Below is part two of my interview:

Davis: How did you research your book? Did you interview people who knew Chapman?

Macintyre: The research material was a combination of documentary material from the files, interviews with living associates and relatives of Chapman, memoirs, diaries, photographs and other sources.

Davis: Did you receive cooperation from the British Security Services when you were researching the book?

Macintyre: Yes, principally from MI5, which even provided an additional, missing file just before publication. For a secretive organization, the Security Service could not have been more open.

Davis: Do you believe Chapman was treated poorly by the British Government after the war?

Macintyre: In some ways, yes. He certainly thought so. On the other hand, he had manipulated his handlers thoroughly, and escaping prosecution for his many crimes was probably reward enough. He was never going to get a medal, however much he thought he deserved one.

Davis: You also wrote another book,  The Napoleon of Crime, a book about Adam Worth, the criminal that Conan Doyle modeled Sherlock Holmes’ nemeses Professor Moriarty on. Do criminals and con men make good subjects for books?

Macintyre: I certainly seem to be attracted, as subjects, to these people who live on the fringes of society. I find I am far more interested in the unknown and the uncertain than the great and the good: and people like Chapman, who managed to be great and very bad at the same time.

Davis: Although their characters and actions are certainly interesting, criminals do lie and cheat for a living. Did you have any difficulties separating Chapman’s boasts and lies from the truth?

Macintyre: Yes: he wrote an autobiography that was largely fiction, and maintained many of his own myths until his death.

More of my interview with Ben Macintyre in my next blog.

Paul Davis’s web site can be read here He can be reached at pauldavisoncrime@comcast.net

About the Author: Paul Davis has been a student of crime and espionage since he was a 12-year-old aspiring writer growing up in South Philadelphia. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy when he was 17 in 1970 and served on an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War. He performed security work as a young sailor and later as a Defense Department civilian employee. As a writer he has covered crime, espionage, terrorism and the military for newspapers, magazines and Internet publications.

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