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The Spy with 29 Names
Hardcover and jacket. Very good condition - unread shop stock. TS
336 pages, Hardcover
First published April 3, 2014
6 people are currently reading
363 people want to read
About the author
Jason Webster
29 books96 followersJason Webster is a highly acclaimed Anglo-American author and authority on Spain whose work ranges from biography to travel, crime fiction and history. His books have sold in over a dozen countries, including the US, the UK and China, and have been nominated both for the Guardian First Book Award and the Crime Writers’ Association New Blood Dagger Award. He has been favourably compared with writers such as Bruce Chatwin (The Daily Mail), Gerald Brenan (El País) and Ernest Hemingway (Sunday Telegraph).
Webster was born near San Francisco and brought up in the UK, Germany and Italy. After finishing a degree in Arabic and Islamic History at the University of Oxford, he worked as an editor at the BBC World Service for several years before becoming a full-time writer and moving to Spain. He is married to the flamenco dancer Salud and they have two sons. They currently divide their time between Valencia and the UK.
Webster was born near San Francisco and brought up in the UK, Germany and Italy. After finishing a degree in Arabic and Islamic History at the University of Oxford, he worked as an editor at the BBC World Service for several years before becoming a full-time writer and moving to Spain. He is married to the flamenco dancer Salud and they have two sons. They currently divide their time between Valencia and the UK.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
March 11, 2015
A joy of a book from a master storywriter about the imaginative power of print from the page:
Jason Webster correctly identifies the Key Skill of the double-agent as the successful distribution of totally believable false stories. Garbo (JP) in fact achieves his mastery of subterfuge mostly as a "storywriter", inventing a consistent and extravagant farrago of literary nonsense that is so moody and plausible that Hitler personally awards him the Iron Cross, Germany's highest military honour.
This is a brilliantly adept book by a master about an earlier one — the difference being that Webster unravels the incredibly complex strands of Garbo's deliberate falsehoods to write as close to the historical truth as we'll probably ever have the delight of getting near.
Jason Webster correctly identifies the Key Skill of the double-agent as the successful distribution of totally believable false stories. Garbo (JP) in fact achieves his mastery of subterfuge mostly as a "storywriter", inventing a consistent and extravagant farrago of literary nonsense that is so moody and plausible that Hitler personally awards him the Iron Cross, Germany's highest military honour.
This is a brilliantly adept book by a master about an earlier one — the difference being that Webster unravels the incredibly complex strands of Garbo's deliberate falsehoods to write as close to the historical truth as we'll probably ever have the delight of getting near.
April 27, 2025
The Spy with 29 Names
An excellent read that cleared up muddles in my understanding of this operation. Especially liked the depiction of the ‘amateur’ energy involved. The energy that gets things done: the chance, the tightrope, the improvisation. Addendum. Webster book was published in 2014. Shakespeare's Life Of Ian Fleming 2023 throws light and also depicts an energy less circumscribed than the present.
Both books are an exciting read: a novel's read that is a researched read. Research that this reader admires, underlying the pages, the lies, the corruption, the pain. Where England is now: the subsequent tenor and history of the UK is an interesting speculation.
An excellent read that cleared up muddles in my understanding of this operation. Especially liked the depiction of the ‘amateur’ energy involved. The energy that gets things done: the chance, the tightrope, the improvisation. Addendum. Webster book was published in 2014. Shakespeare's Life Of Ian Fleming 2023 throws light and also depicts an energy less circumscribed than the present.
Both books are an exciting read: a novel's read that is a researched read. Research that this reader admires, underlying the pages, the lies, the corruption, the pain. Where England is now: the subsequent tenor and history of the UK is an interesting speculation.
December 2, 2016
Garbo, Alaric, Rags, Mrs Gerbers and Stanley have two things in common; they were all false, and they were all one man. However, he did have a real name, and a wife and children, and it is claimed that he is the one of the greatest double agents that we know of; but just who was Juan Pujol?
Pujol was a Spanish man, who disliked totalitarianism. He was involved in the Spanish civil war, avoiding serious action, but somehow managing to switch sides. With the rise of Germany in Europe, he slowly worked his way into the trust of the Nazi’s as a spy providing intelligence and information. His intelligent reports were eagerly received by them, and as the transcripts were read at Bletchley Park, they were equally worried by them. Pujol really wanted to work for MI5, and so he engineered a way of getting to the UK. Not long after he arrived, he was using all his powers of persuasion to convince them to take him on.
So began one on the most audacious double crosses yet known. Pujol’s fertile imagination led to the creation a fictional network of agents. These characters supposedly had some grudge against the state, and he placed them at specific ports and area of interest to the Germans. The Abwehr thought that they had a whole network of 29 spies in Britain; the reality was very different. With the assistance of the Double Cross team in MI5 he spoon fed a carefully concocted blend of truth and lies that misled the entire German high command, including Hitler himself.
This is another of those non-fiction books that read like a spy thriller. Truth and lies were blended in such a way that agents lives and movements were fabricated with all manner of details, and the Nazi’s swallowed the whole thing. The whole deception plan had genuine success too, even though it was touch and go at times; Operation Fortitude managed to keep the German Panzer Divisions near Calais where the next invasion was expected and away from Normandy after the D Day invasion, this allowed troops to establish themselves with much less resistance. This is still a fascinating story about an imaginative and audacious spy first revealed in Macintyre’s book, Double Cross. Macintyre has the edge on Webster as a writer, but this is still worth reading.
Pujol was a Spanish man, who disliked totalitarianism. He was involved in the Spanish civil war, avoiding serious action, but somehow managing to switch sides. With the rise of Germany in Europe, he slowly worked his way into the trust of the Nazi’s as a spy providing intelligence and information. His intelligent reports were eagerly received by them, and as the transcripts were read at Bletchley Park, they were equally worried by them. Pujol really wanted to work for MI5, and so he engineered a way of getting to the UK. Not long after he arrived, he was using all his powers of persuasion to convince them to take him on.
So began one on the most audacious double crosses yet known. Pujol’s fertile imagination led to the creation a fictional network of agents. These characters supposedly had some grudge against the state, and he placed them at specific ports and area of interest to the Germans. The Abwehr thought that they had a whole network of 29 spies in Britain; the reality was very different. With the assistance of the Double Cross team in MI5 he spoon fed a carefully concocted blend of truth and lies that misled the entire German high command, including Hitler himself.
This is another of those non-fiction books that read like a spy thriller. Truth and lies were blended in such a way that agents lives and movements were fabricated with all manner of details, and the Nazi’s swallowed the whole thing. The whole deception plan had genuine success too, even though it was touch and go at times; Operation Fortitude managed to keep the German Panzer Divisions near Calais where the next invasion was expected and away from Normandy after the D Day invasion, this allowed troops to establish themselves with much less resistance. This is still a fascinating story about an imaginative and audacious spy first revealed in Macintyre’s book, Double Cross. Macintyre has the edge on Webster as a writer, but this is still worth reading.
June 23, 2021
Jason Webster is so under-rated! His fictional series featuring detective Max Camara really delves into the under belly of Spain and he also writes compelling non-fiction about what really makes Spain. The Spy with 29 Names is so well written and researched and you wonder why you have never heard this tale before, when details such as the decoding of engima are now in the public domain. This is the story of Juan Pujol who, together with MI5 and 6, created a ficticious network of spies who fed false information to the Nazis and probably saved countless lives in the process. There is lots of detail, which would appeal to those who enjoy reading the history of WW2, but it also a personal story of the man.
September 2, 2019
My all time favourite - drama, suspense, personal tragedies and victories, life and death and striving for a greater good. Fantastic book about one of the most important figures during the WWII that you don't know of.
August 6, 2018
An audacious and (almost) incredible story of the "you just can't make this shit up" variety. How on Earth had I never heard of this fascinating tale before given my interest in anything of the sort?
June 21, 2022
A biography with all the ingredients of a spy thriller.
Amazing read.
Amazing read.
March 7, 2016
The Spy with 29 Names
By Jason Webster
Genre - War fiction
Plot
He fought on both sides in the Spanish Civil War. He was awarded the Iron Cross by Hitler and an MBE by Britain. To MI5 he was known as Garbo. To the Abwehr, he was Alaric. He also went by Rags the Indian Poet, Mrs Gerbers, Stanley the Welsh Nationalist - and 24 other names. He tricked Hitler over D-Day. He was the greatest double agent in history.
But who, exactly, was Juan Pujol?
Using his intimate knowledge of Spain and his skills as a crime novelist, Jason Webster tells for the first time the full true story of the character who captured the imagination in Ben Macintyre's Double Cross. He tells of Pujol's early life in Spain, his determination to fight totalitarianism and his strange journey from German spy to MI5. Working for the British, whom he saw as the exemplars of freedom and democracy, he created a bizarre fictional network of spies - 29 of them - that misled the entire German high command, including Hitler himself. Above all, in Operation Fortitude he diverted German Panzer divisions away from Normandy, playing a crucial role in safeguarding D-Day and ending the war, and securing his reputation as the most successful double agent of the war.
Meticulously researched, yet told with the verve of a thriller, The Spy with 29 Names uncovers the truth - far stranger than any fiction - about the spy behind one of recent history's most important and dramatic events.
Review
This book was absolutely riveting, it contained all the elements I like in a book, about WWII, it was intense, intelligent and an extraordinary factual account.
Joan Pujol Garcia, loathed both the Communist and Fascist regimes in Europe. Pujol wanted to help his fellow man, he was appalled at how people were being treated by the Nazi's and Russians. So he decided to offer his services to the British and Americans as a spy both rejected his offer. Undeterred, he created a false identity as a fanatically pro-Nazi Spanish government official and successfully became a German agent. He was instructed to travel to Britain and recruit additional agents; instead he moved to Lisbon and created bogus reports from a variety of public sources,
including a tourist guide to England, train timetables, cinema newsreels, and magazine advertisements.
Pujol established himself as a trustworthy agent. He began inventing fictional sub-agents who could be blamed for false information and mistakes.
The Allies finally accepted Pujol when the Germans spent considerable resources attempting to hunt down a fictional convoy.The family was moved to Britain and Pujol was given the code name Garbo. Pujol and his handler Tomás Harris spent the rest of the war expanding the fictional network,
Highly recommended.
5 stars
By Jason Webster
Genre - War fiction
Plot
He fought on both sides in the Spanish Civil War. He was awarded the Iron Cross by Hitler and an MBE by Britain. To MI5 he was known as Garbo. To the Abwehr, he was Alaric. He also went by Rags the Indian Poet, Mrs Gerbers, Stanley the Welsh Nationalist - and 24 other names. He tricked Hitler over D-Day. He was the greatest double agent in history.
But who, exactly, was Juan Pujol?
Using his intimate knowledge of Spain and his skills as a crime novelist, Jason Webster tells for the first time the full true story of the character who captured the imagination in Ben Macintyre's Double Cross. He tells of Pujol's early life in Spain, his determination to fight totalitarianism and his strange journey from German spy to MI5. Working for the British, whom he saw as the exemplars of freedom and democracy, he created a bizarre fictional network of spies - 29 of them - that misled the entire German high command, including Hitler himself. Above all, in Operation Fortitude he diverted German Panzer divisions away from Normandy, playing a crucial role in safeguarding D-Day and ending the war, and securing his reputation as the most successful double agent of the war.
Meticulously researched, yet told with the verve of a thriller, The Spy with 29 Names uncovers the truth - far stranger than any fiction - about the spy behind one of recent history's most important and dramatic events.
Review
This book was absolutely riveting, it contained all the elements I like in a book, about WWII, it was intense, intelligent and an extraordinary factual account.
Joan Pujol Garcia, loathed both the Communist and Fascist regimes in Europe. Pujol wanted to help his fellow man, he was appalled at how people were being treated by the Nazi's and Russians. So he decided to offer his services to the British and Americans as a spy both rejected his offer. Undeterred, he created a false identity as a fanatically pro-Nazi Spanish government official and successfully became a German agent. He was instructed to travel to Britain and recruit additional agents; instead he moved to Lisbon and created bogus reports from a variety of public sources,
including a tourist guide to England, train timetables, cinema newsreels, and magazine advertisements.
Pujol established himself as a trustworthy agent. He began inventing fictional sub-agents who could be blamed for false information and mistakes.
The Allies finally accepted Pujol when the Germans spent considerable resources attempting to hunt down a fictional convoy.The family was moved to Britain and Pujol was given the code name Garbo. Pujol and his handler Tomás Harris spent the rest of the war expanding the fictional network,
Highly recommended.
5 stars
November 12, 2016
Amazing. Simply amazing.
The story of Juan Pujol García aka Alaric aka Garbo aka TWENTY SEVEN other names was told awesomely. (To tell you the truth, I was going to use 'masterfully' and then 'wonderfully' but decided those sound too I'm-a-wannabe-New-York-Times-Book-Reviewer-but-I-actually-review-for-The-Sun.) But Jason Webster truly is a stupendous (that's a good word. I like that word.) story teller and I'm going to go out and get more of his books as soon as I can.
The reason this book is 4-stars is because I got confused about who one person was (though I'm sure if I were just a bit smarter I would be able to get it. Well, I guess I'm just for sure not going to get into the spy section in the Army.) and because sometimes someone was introduced but their part didn't take place until the next chapter or so and I wanted them introduced chronologically.
But please, if you're reading this review, GO READ THE BOOK!
The story of Juan Pujol García aka Alaric aka Garbo aka TWENTY SEVEN other names was told awesomely. (To tell you the truth, I was going to use 'masterfully' and then 'wonderfully' but decided those sound too I'm-a-wannabe-New-York-Times-Book-Reviewer-but-I-actually-review-for-The-Sun.) But Jason Webster truly is a stupendous (that's a good word. I like that word.) story teller and I'm going to go out and get more of his books as soon as I can.
The reason this book is 4-stars is because I got confused about who one person was (though I'm sure if I were just a bit smarter I would be able to get it. Well, I guess I'm just for sure not going to get into the spy section in the Army.) and because sometimes someone was introduced but their part didn't take place until the next chapter or so and I wanted them introduced chronologically.
But please, if you're reading this review, GO READ THE BOOK!
July 21, 2014
This book was very well written. It was like reading a fictional story, removing the "boredom" that readers experience when reading historical non-fiction. Though the timelines were a bit confusing or were overlapping (for someone not so familiar), it did not fail to capture the essence of the story, adding a bit of humour and mixing conflict within THE conflict. I have learned so much from reading this book. I am not much well-versed and not much interested in history, much more the war, but because of this, my interest has been awakened and I began to appreciate history and the inside story of it, the untold stories and unsung heroes behind the victory of the Allies during World War II. I would highly recommend this to history junkies or even those looking for an interesting, educational read, a brush up from the past and a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes stories that went along.
November 18, 2014
Moving from the gore and mayhem of the maneuvers of war to the cold huts of Bletchley in 1940 and thence to the mundane safe houses of MI5, Jason Webster has scripted a tale of defiant imagination, unquenched belief and thread hanging gambits that all came together to play a major part in the Allies' triumph over Nazi Germany. It shows again that pitted against brute force, wit and imagination will often tip the scale. A vividly and well written story although one that sometimes left me thinking that the author was more interested in telling tales of martial derring do for their imaginative impact than in advancing this tale. And, yet, I have been more thoroughly educated about British thinking during the Nazi war.
January 8, 2016
Who knew? Not many people won medals from both sides during WW2. Juan Pujol, a likeable Spanish character who worked for British intelligence can claim this distinction, creating and playing a cast of characters that completely fooled German intelligence and was vitally helpful to the D-Day invasion. This is a fun and informative read about a little known hero who played an essential part in the winning of the second world war.
May 26, 2014
A non-fiction that reads like fiction. A must read for anyone interested in WW 2. I am not a big fan of war literature but love a good spy story and this book provides and incredible spy story, even better that all this really took place.
July 25, 2014
Fascinating true story
November 4, 2015
Factual and fascinating. I enjoy reading anything to do with the two world wars. This book didn't disappoint it was very well written and told a fascinating story.
September 13, 2015
Won from goodreads
Well written book for anyone interested in the WWII I learned a lot of things I didn't know about and would whole heartedly recommend
Well written book for anyone interested in the WWII I learned a lot of things I didn't know about and would whole heartedly recommend
June 23, 2015
Stunning. A riveting read. Everyone with an interest in WW2 should read this.
June 24, 2015
I will add a review soon.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews