Ben Macintyre (Double Cross) offers a fresh look at master double agent Kim Philby, examining his duplicity against the backdrop of his closest friendships with fellow operatives who loved but never truly knew him. Charming, clever and almost universally liked, Philby rose through the ranks of British intelligence to become head of MI6's office in Washington, D.C. Along the way, he made many close friends in the intelligence community, including CIA counterintelligence head James Jesus Angleton, but none was so close or staunchly supportive of Philby as fellow MI6 agent Nicholas Elliott. Brought together by class and clubs, baptized together by fire and gin, the two were as close as brothers, Elliott thought. He never suspected his friend Philby was passing every secret Elliott told him to the U.S.S.R.
Macintyre shines a light not into what happened, but how it could be allowed to happen. Although Philby himself insisted his duplicity stemmed solely from a lifelong devotion to Communist ideals, Macintyre paints a different picture, that of a clever sociopath who betrayed hundreds of people to their deaths with no remorse. And as Philby's career progresses, his ability to lead a double life is aided by ties of class and privilege. Any suspense-loving student of human nature will be shocked and thrilled by this true narrative of deceit. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads