Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory
By: Ben Macintyre / Narrated By: John Lee
Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
I hear tell this is only for history buffs?!? Well, hallelujah and huzzah: That I most certainly am!!!
Okay so, like, I always take note of middling reviews before I write my own cuz those are often the most clear-eyed takes on a story you can get. And for Operation Mincemeat, those individuals aaaaaalllll said that this book’s greatest failing is that it’s research character backstory, research character backstory, on and on, details run amok…
And what, might I ask, is wrong with that?!? I LIVE for that!
Yes, here author Ben Macintyre drops us straight into the middle of the action, and then backtracks to introduce us to an inCREDible amount of characters, and then throughout the rest of the story, he slow builds until we get slapped back to where we started at the opening. The story?
Only the best there ever was!!!
Picture it: 1943, and the world is at war. The Allies have only one place to go, and that’s Sicily. But EVERYBODY knows that, especially the Germans, so how on earth are the Allies s’posed to send a landing army on Sicily’s coast without all men getting slaughtered by Hitler’s waiting troops?
Easy. Throw ‘em off the scent by finding a body, putting documents saying the Allies will reeeeeally be landing at Greece/Sardinia with a buildup of forces around Sicily being only a feint in a briefcase locked to the body, and dumping it all in the water and hoping said body will be handed over to the Nazis.
What could POSSibly go wrong…?
The book opens with a fisherman off the coast of Spain finding the floating corpse, and then Macintyre takes us back to introduce us to two quirky dudes in British Intelligence coming up with the idea and wondering if it’ll go anywhere. Ewen Montagu is our main hero, and he and Charles Cholmondeley do everything BUT throw in the kitchen sink when they come across an unclaimed body (RIP Glyndwr Michael) and create a history for him as William “Bill” Martin. They give him a “communique” between Allied officials with the hints about Greece and Sardinia yes, but they also give him a personality (Is that a note from a bank manager saying he’s overdrawn his account again?) and a girlfriend (“Pam” who is really that game girl working in their department and who doesn’t mind coughing up a photo of her blushing in a swimsuit).
See? I guess I suppose that’s where the middle of the road-ers have their point: This book is FRAUGHT with minute details like that, but I felt it was absolutely relevant, that Macintyre was putting the same legwork into his research and depictions as Ewen and Charles put into dead man “Bill Martin”. When it comes to dropping the body (Which, over the time it took to create his background, was held in a freezer and is rapidly decomposing!) off the coast of “neutral” (Yeah right, British Intelligence was counting on officials to give the Nazis first crack at the downed Navy man) Spain, we’re treated to the submarine commander’s past skirmishes, then we follow him through his continued exploits, and we’re even given a glimpse into his first and undying love. Maaaaybe it’s interrupting the story to drop off tidbits like that that has certain people yawning?
Me, I love that! Operation Mincemeat reads like the best spy novel with its crosses and double crosses, its possible, nay PROBable, pitfalls that’ll have you on the edge of your seat, its many near misses and dodged bullets that’ll have you breathing sighs of relief, then onto even more ways things could go terribly, terribly awry.
And through it all is brilliant orator John Lee. He nobly narrates in a grand fashion, and he carries off the whimsy like all get-out (Macintyre spares nothing in the humor department). There are a multitude of players in this game, and Lee is a master of accents and voices and characterizations, never taking himself seriously but always delivering, giving the material the weight it is due. Seriously, Robertson Dean may do a LOT of the military history I have, but John Lee does my FAVORITE military history!
11+ hours just fly by if you have John Lee at the helm, and Macintyre gave him some rock solid writing, some clever ploys and pranks, to guide us through.
And seriously: RIP Glyndwr Michael… you’ll forever have a home in this heart o’ mine…
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