Truth is stranger than fiction? Truth is better than fiction. In 1943, Ewan Montagu, a British naval intelligence officer, and Charles Cholmondeley of MI5 come up with a daring, outrageous plan to float a dead body carrying false intelligence onto the shores of Spain in the hopes that it will fall into German hands. Montagu chronicled his adventures in a book called The Man That Never Was, which was also made into a movie. After Montagu’s death in 1985 McIntyre was given access to Montagu’s personal papers, and so began Operation Mincemeat -- the story behind the story. The British intelligence officer whose brother is a spy for Russia, the Welsh coal miner who played the lead role after he was dead, the genial undertaker, the Spanish authorities who weren’t as corrupt as the British hoped, the ambitious but somewhat dim German intelligence officer – all these characters and more combine in a tale of deception that changed the course of history. Written like a novel, it is all the more enjoyable as the story is backed up by photographs and even a Photostat of the original written plan. Highly recommend.
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