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Churchill's Secret Agent: A Novel Based On A True Story (2010)

by Max Ciampoli(Favorite Author)

3.26 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0425229750 (ISBN13: 9780425229750)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Berkley

review 1: This is probably about 2 1/2 stars but I'm gonna go up rather than down. I started reading this book back in September and finally quit because I couldn't get into it. I had a number of complaints against it. 1 - The writing is quite poor. The first 250 pages read like a travel log. There is very little plot or character development and so many questions were left unanswered. 2 - How on earth does a young man, 17-21 years of age (the protagonist), have such far reaching contacts? He knows everyone who is possibly important: celebrities, military leaders, owners of hotels or restaurants. And his memory is impeccable. Places he visited when he was 4 or 5, and would return to for a mission, he would say he had an intimate knowledge of and thereby his knowledge made him indis... morepensable. 3 - He is ridiculously full of himself. He knows everyone and everything, including who can be trusted and who can't, he's like the mortal version of Hercules with his physical strength, and has mental and strategic prowess beyond the capacity of military men far his senior in both age and experience. 4 - Too many of these stories seem remarkably far fetched to be even remotely close to true. It's like James Bond on steroids.So why err on the side of a three-star review? The last 100 pages sucked me in. It was during this time that he finally becomes human, he finally makes mistakes, the story finally has some detail and development. I'd never read it again (and am not sure how many people I'd recommend it to) but those last 100 or so pages made the story interesting.
review 2: (Betty)The author was born in 1922 and is now in his 90"s and is reminiscing about his war efforts during World War II. He was born in France and loved his country dearly. After a difficult but very interesting childhood, he wanted to volunteer to do something that would help his beloved France. At an early age he became a secret agent for Winston Churchill. The book tells about some of his escapades and his development during the time of the war. I thought of it as an autobiography and was amazed at the facts that he could remember - such as what meals he consumed during the different events. In 1986 he became an American citizen and led a successful life as an Executive Chef, Designer Yacht Dealer, and Class Car Dealer at different time traveling from New York to the West Coast.The writing style was not as wonderful as Laura Hillenbrand's "Unbroken", but it was a very interesting book.(Bill) This is a story about a young French collage student that had becomes a very close friend of Churchill and became his special agent and spy to do super secret assignments. The setting is during the Second World War. The hero in this book had lots of hair raising exploits where he always made the correct decisions and everything came together correctly, in the end. It was a fun read, but not one I would keep in my library. less

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