The Unlikely Spy

Author Daniel Silva has done his usual wonderful job with the book THE UNLIKELY SPY.THE UNLIKELY SPY is an old-fashioned thriller, in the vein of the great spy novels of earlier decades.Set principally in England during World War II--with detours to New York and Nazi Germany--it is a gripping story which keeps the reader turning the pages to see what will happen next.The plot is brilliant in it conception, in its breadth, and in the execution. Silva does a good job conveying what life must have been like in London during those hard years of World War II.His premise is that the Allies had to mislead the Nazis, carefully and deliberately, to misdirect them from expecting the invasion of Normandy, this being "misinformation" in the purest sense of the word. This novel focuses on the British Secret Service (precursor of the service in which the fictional James Bond is said to have been a member) and on exactly how they could structure this deception. There is a great deal of plausible detail, and some cliffhanging moments in Silva's telling. His research is awe-inspiring.Long as the book runs, there are a few subplots and earlier clues that remain unaddressed at its conclusion--or, alternatively, these are tied up too simplistically, too off-handedly, too incompletely, to do anything but cheat the engaged reader.Still, these few blips are insignificant in a work of this magnitude. Daniel Silva has proven that his talents are as good as anybody writing today.

Daniel Silva's "The Unlikely Spy" has more twists and turns than a corkscrew. This spine-tingling, historical espionage thriller is set in London, Germany and the US during World War II. The plot, and complex subplots, go back and forth in time and place, from the mid-1930s to the period before the invasion of Europe. Thus the scenario is set, and the novel's various characters are brought to life. These are the people who are involved in the Allies' invasion plans, and the Germans who plot to discover the top-secret information, and thwart the invasion. Many of the details and historical figures are accurately depicted, and realistically fleshed-out by Mr. Silva. Churchill, Hitler, Schellenberg, Himmler, Canaris and Eisenhower all have important roles in this action packed adventure - and their personas are fascinating.Alfred Vicary is a primary character, and much of the story revolves around him. He is a brilliant professor and a noted historian, who was befriended by Churchill in 1935. At that time Churchill was warning Britain and Europe of the Nazi threat, but to no avail. The predominant political pundits of the day believed that Hitler, and Nazi Germany, were a good counterbalance to Stalin and the Soviet Union. Vicary wrote to Churchill, after hearing him lecture, to tell him that he agreed with his assessments. Churchill invited Vicary to his home, Chartwell, and they became close political confidants. In 1939 England's Prime Minister summoned Professor Vicary to his home, once again, to ask him to take a job in Military Intelligence for the duration of the war. Churchill tells the professor, "I need someone I can trust inside that department. It's time to put the 'intelligence' back in Military Intelligence."Catherine Blake, the novel's other primary figure, is half English and half German. Since her mother's death, when she was a child, Catherine was raised by her father in Germany. She is beautiful, intelligent and a sociopath. She was targeted early by German Intelligence, five years before the war, to be trained as a special secret agent - a sleeper. Her German controller knew everything about her, including traumatic events of her adolescence, and was a genius at manipulating her. He threatened her with her father's possible imprisonment, torture and death if she did not succeed in her mission. And her mission was to secretly enter Britain, adopt an English identity, live in London, and wait until she would be activated. She was expected to discover and transmit the key information of the Normandy invasion to her German masters.This is a real page turner. Until the novel's conclusion, the reader is never sure who is the enemy, the secret agent - who is working for whom? Silva is an excellent writer. His fast paced narrative flows, and his characters are very well developed. I have read most of his books, and this is one of the best,

Together with "Enigma" and "The Black Tulip" by Milt Bearden, and of course the George Smiley series by John Le Carre, this is one of my few really recommended fictional accounts related to espionage.The art of lying to one's own people, at multiple levels of duplicity, some venal, much of it unnecessary, has helped to mystify, confuse, and sometimes glorify the intelligence profession.As an intelligence professional myself, I will simply say that this is one of my top six and that it would not be called fiction if it did not depart for the pure realities as much as it does. This book captures the "essence" of duplicity within government in a time of war, and I find the whole book absolutely captivating and worthwhile.

This is one of my all-time favorite books, but I had to read it through again once I discovered the mechanisms behind the story. Not being overly familiar with what really goes on in MI-5, I found the subtleties intriguing, particularly in light of the comment that, in war, the truth is so precious that it must be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies. In this book, it is a reader's mind game to figure out the truth. Besides the obvious, I enjoyed my mental picture of Basil Boothby, career information officer and office womanizer, to be the most enjoyable.