Agent Garbo: The Brilliant, Eccentric Secret Agent Who Tricked Hitler and Saved D-Day
(Libby/OverDrive eBook, Kindle)

*Starred Review* Most readers probably haven't heard of Juan Pujol, the Spanish hotel manager who, in January 1941, waltzed into the British Embassy in Madrid and announced that he wanted to help the Allied war effort. Nobody knew quite what to do with him, and, to be fair, he really didn't know exactly what he wanted to do although espionage seemed a viable course of action, despite his utter lack of training or experience. Turned down by the British, Pujol came up with a stunningly audacious plan: he would approach the Germans, offer his services as a spy, gather intelligence, and then go back to the British, operating as a double agent. And here's the thing: it worked. Pujol became one of the most important and successful British double agents, manipulating the Germans to believe the most spectacular lies such as the one that said the D-Day invasion would be at Calais, not Normandy. This is a wonderful book for WWII buffs, a true-life spy thriller with about as much intrigue and excitement as you'd find in a le Carre novel.--Pitt, David Copyright 2010 Booklist

Epic intelligence coups of WWII unreel in this colorful caper saga. Journalist Talty (Empire of Blue Water) recounts the exploits of Juan Pujol, an idealistic Spanish chicken farmer and hotelier who ran an ingenious free-lance scam to feed German intelligence officers in Spain fabricated information from an England he had never seen, then persuaded the initially dismissive British to accept him as a double agent. Derring-do subsides to theatrical fraud once Pujols is safely ensconced in London as Agent Garbo, with a network of 27 fictitious pro-Nazi spies, including an imaginary mistress in the War Office, and a team of real British intelligence officers who scripted the misleading dispatches he radioed to the enthralled Germans. Garbo's greatest feat was to help convince Hitler to divert troops from Normandy to Calais to await a second Allied invasion that never came. Talty's Pujol is a captivating character with a talent for operatic confabulation, but Garbo is just the alluring lead in massive deceptions that the author likens to Hollywood productions, complete with rubber tanks, fake ships, and a Montgomery impersonator. The result is a rollicking story of wartime eccentrics and their labyrinthine mind games. Photos. Agent: Scott Waxman, Waxman Literary Agency. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Acting on his own, furious at the fascists of the Spanish Civil War, poultry farmer Juan Pujol sought to work for the British in World War II but was rebuffed. Not to be deterred, he sought acceptance as an agent for the Germans, who accepted him as a pro-Nazi operative. The British then accepted him as a double agent, Agent Garbo, and he fooled the Germans with a supposed network of informants in the UK. Meanwhile, the British had turned him into the centerpiece of the multifaceted efforts in 1944 to deceive the Germans as to the date and location of Operation Overlord, the Normandy invasion. Employing archival material and interviews, Talty (Empire of Blue Water) gives readers a popular account of Agent Garbo's vital work, with details of dangerous espionage and stressful daily life in wartime Spain and England, along with the ironic humor that one finds in wartime. Talty, rather briefly, follows Pujol's life after the war. Verdict This work complements Pujol's own book, written with Nigel West, Operation Garbo (1986) and is recommended for a new generation of espionage and World War II intelligence buffs.-Daniel K. Blewett, Coll. of DuPage Lib., Glen Ellyn, IL (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The exciting, improbable adventures of a young Spanish spy who managed to become Britain's most effective tool in deceiving Hitler. The mammoth concerted effort to trick the Germans into believing that the D-Day invasion was not really landing at Normandy but at Calais--despite Hitler's better instincts--required months of careful planning and streams of deceptive information fed to the Germans by agents like Juan Pujol, aka Garbo. A journalist of wide-ranging interests, Talty (Escape from the Land of Snows: The Young Dalai Lama's Harrowing Flight to Freedom and the Making of a Spiritual Hero, 2011, etc.) tells Garbo's story with verve and suspense. Pujol grew to hate the Germans after witnessing the mechanized violence of the Spanish Civil War and concocted imaginative scenarios to help the Allies by initially offering himself as a spy for Germany. Once he convinced the British he was for real, he was used to feed the Nazis a steady mixture of truth and falsehood to establish his trustworthiness. Deflecting the Nazis from the real invasion at Normandy was the great task of the so-called XX Committee of the British secret services, whose function during the war the author compares to the workings of a Hollywood studio. As Garbo, the double agent was supplied with a wireless radio in his London safe house and communicated with the Germans in cipher. Despite German suspicions surrounding the disastrous trial run for the invasion in 1943, Garbo and other top agents were able to convince them that the invasion would be a "fake double-pronged attack--a spring assault on Norway and a summer invasion of the Pas de Calais." To accomplish this, a ghost army was created and moved around southern England--duly reported on by Garbo in the hope of keeping Hitler's 15th Army away from the Normandy beaches for the first 72 hours after the invasion. The ruse succeeded beyond everyone's expectations--more than two weeks after the invasion, German divisions still stood on alert at Calais. A lively, rollicking good read.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

*Starred Review* Most readers probably haven't heard of Juan Pujol, the Spanish hotel manager who, in January 1941, waltzed into the British Embassy in Madrid and announced that he wanted to help the Allied war effort. Nobody knew quite what to do with him, and, to be fair, he really didn't know exactly what he wanted to do—although espionage seemed a viable course of action, despite his utter lack of training or experience. Turned down by the British, Pujol came up with a stunningly audacious plan: he would approach the Germans, offer his services as a spy, gather intelligence, and then go back to the British, operating as a double agent. And here's the thing: it worked. Pujol became one of the most important and successful British double agents, manipulating the Germans to believe the most spectacular lies—such as the one that said the D-Day invasion would be at Calais, not Normandy. This is a wonderful book for WWII buffs, a true-life spy thriller with about as much intrigue and excitement as you'd find in a le Carré novel. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

Acting on his own, furious at the fascists of the Spanish Civil War, poultry farmer Juan Pujol sought to work for the British in World War II but was rebuffed. Not to be deterred, he sought acceptance as an agent for the Germans, who accepted him as a pro-Nazi operative. The British then accepted him as a double agent, Agent Garbo, and he fooled the Germans with a supposed network of informants in the UK. Meanwhile, the British had turned him into the centerpiece of the multifaceted efforts in 1944 to deceive the Germans as to the date and location of Operation Overlord, the Normandy invasion. Employing archival material and interviews, Talty (Empire of Blue Water) gives readers a popular account of Agent Garbo's vital work, with details of dangerous espionage and stressful daily life in wartime Spain and England, along with the ironic humor that one finds in wartime. Talty, rather briefly, follows Pujol's life after the war. Verdict This work complements Pujol's own book, written with Nigel West, Operation Garbo (1986) and is recommended for a new generation of espionage and World War II intelligence buffs.-Daniel K. Blewett, Coll. of DuPage Lib., Glen Ellyn, IL (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Epic intelligence coups of WWII unreel in this colorful caper saga. Journalist Talty (Empire of Blue Water) recounts the exploits of Juan Pujol, an idealistic Spanish chicken farmer and hotelier who ran an ingenious free-lance scam to feed German intelligence officers in Spain fabricated information from an England he had never seen, then persuaded the initially dismissive British to accept him as a double agent. Derring-do subsides to theatrical fraud once Pujols is safely ensconced in London as Agent Garbo, with a network of 27 fictitious pro-Nazi spies, including an imaginary mistress in the War Office, and a team of real British intelligence officers who scripted the misleading dispatches he radioed to the enthralled Germans. Garbo's greatest feat was to help convince Hitler to divert troops from Normandy to Calais to await a second Allied invasion that never came. Talty's Pujol is a captivating character with a talent for operatic confabulation, but Garbo is just the alluring lead in massive deceptions that the author likens to Hollywood productions, complete with rubber tanks, fake ships, and a Montgomery impersonator. The result is a rollicking story of wartime eccentrics and their labyrinthine mind games. Photos. Agent: Scott Waxman, Waxman Literary Agency. (July)