British intelligence nearly sabotaged the most important battle of the Second World War by misplacing--or possibly murdering--a lap dog named Babs. Lily Sergeyev, a Frenchwoman of Russian descent, agreed to come to London as a double agent as long as she could bring her precious terrier-poodle mix, Babs. But MI5 apparently found safeguarding a dog too frivolous in a time of war, and Babs disappeared suspiciously. Sergeyev, seething, secretly plotted to reveal her duplicity to the Germans.
Meanwhile, a randy Yugoslav with fierce anti-Nazi convictions was so deeply embedded in German intelligence that MI5 should have been thrilled. But his nonstop party lifestyle presented his handlers with staggering financial headaches.
With all the breezy outrageousness of a good spy novel, Ben Macintyre's Double Cross unspools all the now-declassified details of the small, ragtag band of displaced Continentals who, along with their British handlers, somehow managed to piece together a campaign of misinformation that threw the Nazis off the scent of the Normandy invasion, thereby keeping Hitler from preparing a formidable defense. Macintyre (Operation Zigzag) never loses track of the gravity of what was at stake for the Double Cross operation. But, through his astonishing, entertaining chronicle, he also lets readers revel in the absurd exploits of these unlikely heroes whose lies, somehow, tipped the balance of fate for millions. --Cherie Ann Parker, freelance journalist and book critic