In 1994, shortly before Ronnie’s death, he revealed the truth of his remarkable past to his son, Nicholas.
For ten years after the Second World War, he headed the anti-Russian department of MI5, dealing with notorious spies such as Philby, Burgess and Maclean. The passport photo of The Man Who Never Was, was a photo of Ronnie Reed.
Recruited in the dead of night from his Anderson shelter, Ronnie became a case officer for double agents, including Eddie Chapman, known then as Agent Zigzag. And yet, despite minimal money and qualifications, he became one of the men behind some of the most remarkable spy stories of all time. He was only 23 when it broke out an amateur radio enthusiast who was working as a maintenance engineer for the BBC. Major Ronnie Reed never spoke about what he did in the Second World War. But the police car that collected me took me to Wormwood Scrubs Prison. I remember it as the day I was called up. But, as his spymasters and many lovers often wondered, who was the real Eddie Chapman? Ben Macintyre weaves together diaries, letters, photographs, memories and top-secret MI5 files to create an exhilarating account of Britain's most sensational double agent.Most of us remember the seventh of September 1940 as the day the London docks were bombed and devastated by fire. Dashing and suave, courageous and unpredictable, Chapman was by turns a traitor, a hero, a villain and a man of conscience. His name was Eddie Chapman, but he would shortly become MI5's Agent Zigzag.
His mission: to sabotage the British war effort. It would be impossible to recommend it too highly' Mail on Sunday _ One December night in 1942, a Nazi parachutist landed in a Cambridgeshire field. Meticulously researched, splendidly told, immensely entertaining' John le Carré 'This is the most amazing book, full of fascinating and hair-raising true life adventures.
From the bestselling author of Operation Mincemeat, now a major film SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD 'Engrossing as any thriller' Daily Telegraph 'Superb.
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