…tales of luck, pluck and doom are not the best reason for plowing through the 600 pages of The Secret War. To begin, the book embodies a herculean research effort down to the minutest detail. Fear not. In spite of its heft, this tome is a real page turner. Screenwriters might cull a few thrillers from the text—and populate them with real-life heroes, fools and traitors. Finally, Hastings provides a welcome reality check for those who draw their spy lore from TV shows or movies like The Imitation Game…For all its focus on the Anglo-American brotherhood, The Secret War also covers the whole front from the French and Dutch resistance to the German Abwehr and the Soviet NKVD. Like the rest, these chapters blend first-rate reportage, finely chiseled portraits and in-depth research. They brim with true tales of sacrifice and petty-mindedness, miraculous breakthroughs and cynical betrayal.

Hastings (Catastrophe: 1914) further solidifies his gift for combining scholarship and readability in this scintillating overview of intelligence operations in WWII...Hastings tells it all in a book everyone interested in WWII should acquire.” — Publishers Weekly

“Ambitious and often fascinating...This wide-ranging account is filled with compelling characters...A superb survey of an always interesting aspect of warfare.” — Booklist

“[Hastings] brilliantly depicts the byzantine world of intelligence agencies, with dry humor and perception.” — New York Review of Books

“[D]efinitive….This is a marvelous book - smart, carefully and exhaustively researched and highly informative. Even those exceptionally knowledgeable about World War II will find it extremely valuable. It is compelling and fascinating reading.” — Christian Science Monitor

Brilliantly depicts the byzantine world of intelligence agencies, with dry humor and perception.”

A superb survey of an always interesting aspect of warfare.”

Provides readers with a thorough understanding of how intelligence operated during the conflict…Recommended.”

Hastings returns to World War II with the usual entirely satisfying results. There are plenty of excellent accounts of the war’s espionage, codebreaking, and secret operations…A masterful account of wartime skulduggery that has relevance still today.”

Narrator Steven Crossley’s British accent gives his narration a winsome and academic-sounding quality…The production is long and will take a lot of stamina from the listener but will be worth it for those who persevere. That Crossley was able to make it to the end of this with such consistency and strength of voice is a feat in itself.”

A marvelous book—smart, carefully and exhaustively researched, and highly informative. Even those exceptionally knowledgeable about World War II will find it extremely valuable. It is compelling and fascinating reading.”

Embodies a herculean research effort down to the minutest detail. Fear not. In spite of its heft, this tome is a real page turner…These chapters blend first-rate reportage, finely chiseled portraits, and in-depth research. They brim with true tales of sacrifice and petty-mindedness, miraculous breakthroughs and cynical betrayal.”

A total thriller with a full cast of killers, swashbucklers, and beautiful adventuresses. The best history of war intelligence yet.”

Ambitious and often fascinating...This wide-ranging account is filled with compelling characters...A superb survey of an always interesting aspect of warfare.

★ 2016-02-17
Taking a break with Catastrophe: 1914 (2013), veteran military historian Hastings returns to World War II with the usual entirely satisfying results. There are plenty of excellent accounts of the war's espionage, codebreaking, and secret operations. Hastings mentions authors, including Stephen Budiansky and David Kahn, and warns that he will cover the same ground, adding that many popular histories and almost all memoirs and even official reports from the participants are largely fiction—including the recent acclaimed film about Alan Turing, The Imitation Game. The Red Army defeated Germany with modest help from the Allied Army, which, across the world, defeated Japan. Hastings disparages writers who describe a secret activity that turned the tide, but few readers will be able to resist his version of events. Hitler and Stalin scorned Britain's armies, but, influenced by the work of Rudyard Kipling, Somerset Maugham, and John Buchan, they "viewed its spies with extravagant respect, indeed cherished a belief in their omniscience" that was entirely undeserved. Money was no object in Soviet espionage. Agents penetrated the Nazi high command and all Allied government, sending back an avalanche of information that was routinely ignored. Obsessed with finding conspiracies, the paranoid Stalin distrusted everyone, foreigners most of all, and rejected findings that contradicted his beliefs. Allied codebreakers deserve the praise lavished on them, but Hastings points out that the German codebreakers were no slouches. While Bletchley Park broke enemy naval codes intermittently, Germany read British naval codes throughout the war. Hastings has little quarrel with historians who agree that resistance fighters did more to promote postwar self-respect of occupied nations than hasten Allied victory. As he notes in closing, in the digital age, "the importance to national security of intelligence, eavesdropping, codebreaking and counter-insurgency has never been greater." A masterful account of wartime skulduggery that has relevance still today.