The New York Times Book Review - Walter Isaacson
When devouring this thriller about Kim Philby…I had to keep reminding myself that it was not a novel. It reads like a story by Graham Greene, Ian Fleming or John le Carré, all of whom make appearances, leavened by a dollop of P. G. Wodehouse. But, in fact, A Spy Among Friends is a solidly researched true story…Ben Macintyre…takes a fresh look at the grandest espionage drama of our era. And like one of his raffish characters relaxing around the bar at White's, that venerable clubhouse of England's old boys' network, he is able to play the role of an amusing raconteur who can cloak psychological and sociological insights with dry humor.
Publishers Weekly - Audio
★ 09/29/2014
Macintyre’s latest biography chronicles the adventures of British intelligence officer Kim Philby, who secretly spied for the Soviet Union throughout most of his career. These events have inspired a host of fictional espionage thrillers, but Macintyre offers new context to address the forces that shaped Philby’s betrayal of his country. Veteran reader Lee effectively shifts between expository passages and dialogue. Philby’s career makes for an engrossing narrative, with accounts of double-crosses and triple-crosses, and Lee’s performance brings out the human element in the action-packed plot. His rendering of eccentric CIA counterintelligence leader James Jesus Angleton—an American with strong British ties and sensibilities—is especially memorable. Building to the climactic confrontation between Philby and his best friend and colleague, Nicholas Elliott, Lee’s delivery of the spy vs. spy banter evokes the essence of Cold War tension. A Crown hardcover. (July)
Publishers Weekly
★ 05/05/2014
In this engaging real-life spy story, Macintyre (Double Cross) pulls back the curtain on the life and exploits of Kim Philby, who served for decades in Britain’s intelligence community while secretly working as a Soviet double agent. Macintyre covers the full range of Philby’s career, from his work during WWII and the early years of the Cold War to his downfall and defection to the Soviet Union. Moreover, Macintyre widens his scope to look at Philby’s closest allies and friends, including fellow MI6 officer Nicholas Elliot and CIA operative James Jesus Angleton—the men who stood by him when all others were convinced of his as-yet-unproven guilt. Working with colorful characters and an anything-can-happen attitude, Macintyre builds up a picture of an intelligence community chock-full of intrigue and betrayal, in which Philby was the undisputed king of lies. There’s a measure of admiration in the text for Philby’s run of luck and audacious accomplishments, as when he was actually placed in charge of anti-Soviet intelligence: “The fox was not merely guarding the henhouse but building it, running it, assessing its strengths and frailties, and planning its future construction.” Entertaining and lively, Macintyre’s account makes the best fictional thrillers seem tame. Agent: Ed Victor, Ed Victor Ltd. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
Macintyre has produced more than just a spy story. He has written a narrative about that most complex of topics, friendship. . . . When devouring this thriller, I had to keep reminding myself it was not a novel. . . . [Macintyre] takes a fresh look at the grandest espionage drama of our era.”—Walter Isaacson, The New York Times Book Review
“A Spy Among Friends is the latest in Ben Macintyre’s series on twentieth-century espionage. All are superb, and A Spy Among Friends is no exception. Macintyre gives the familiar story of Philby new life.”—Malcolm Gladwell,The New Yorker
“Macintyre does here what he does best—tell a heck of a good story. A Spy Among Friends is hands down the most entertaining book I’ve reviewed this year.”—Boston Globe
“Macintyre is a superb writer, with an eye for the telling detail as fine as any novelist’s. . . . A Spy Among Friendsis as suspenseful as any novel, too, as the clues tighten around Philby’s guilt.”—Dallas Morning News
“By now, the story of British double agent Harold ‘Kim’ Philby may be the most familiar spy yarn ever, fodder for whole libraries of histories, personal memoirs and novels. But Ben Macintyre manages to retell it in a way that makes Philby’s destructive genius fresh and horridly fascinating.”—David Ignatius, The Washington Post
“A crisply written tale of a classic intelligence case that remains relevant more than fifty years later.”—USA Today
“A Spy Among Friends is extensively researched, well-written, and a terrific read. . . . An absolutely captivating book.”—Christian Science Monitor
“Vivid and fascinating.”—Newsday
“[Macintyre] deserves full credit for delivering this complex, continent-hopping tale with clarity. . . . The result is, in every sense, a class act. A-.”—Entertainment Weekly
“Excellent . . . I was thoroughly engrossed in this book, beginning to end. It has all the suspense of a good spy novel, and its characters are a complex mix of charm, eccentricity, intelligence and wit. And it offers a great—and mostly troubling—insight into the behind-the-scenes workings of those we entrust with the most important of our political and military secrets.”—HuffPost
“Riveting . . . Mr. Macintyre [is] a shrewd and masterful chronicler.”—Washington Times
“Working with colorful characters and an anything-can-happen attitude, Macintyre builds up a picture of an intelligence community chock-full of intrigue and betrayal, in which Philby was the undisputed king of lies. . . . Entertaining and lively, Macintyre’s account makes the best fictional thrillers seem tame.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Library Journal
★ 10/01/2015
Likely the most infamous spy of all time, Kim Philby was a high-ranking British Intelligence agent later revealed to have been spying for the Soviets. Relying on newly declassified files, Macintyre's account of the tortured relationship between Philby and his longtime best friend, Nicholas Elliot, has the psychological depth and suspense of great fiction and is indispensable context for any fan of espionage fiction. (LJ Prepub Alert 2/1/14)
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2014-05-29
A tale of espionage, alcoholism, bad manners and the chivalrous code of spies—the real world of James Bond, that is, as played out by clerks and not superheroes.Now pretty well forgotten, Kim Philby (1912-1988) was once a byname for the sort of man who would betray his country for a song. The British intelligence agent was not alone, of course; as practiced true-espionage writer Macintyre (Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies, 2012, etc.) notes, more than 200 American intelligence agents became Soviet agents during World War II—"Moscow had spies in the treasury, the State Department, the nuclear Manhattan Project, and the OSS"—and the Brits did their best to keep up on their end. Philby may have been an unlikely prospect, given his upper-crust leanings, but a couple of then-fatal flaws involving his sexual orientation and still-fatal addiction to alcohol, to say nothing of his political convictions, put him in Stalin's camp. Macintyre begins near the end, with a boozy Philby being confronted by a friend in intelligence, fellow MI6 officer Nicholas Elliott, whom he had betrayed; but rather than take Philby to prison or put a bullet in him, by the old-fashioned code, he was essentially allowed to flee to Moscow. Writing in his afterword, John Le Carré recalls asking Elliott, with whom he worked in MI6, about Philby's deceptions—"it quickly became clear that he wanted to draw me in, to make me marvel…to make me share his awe and frustration at the enormity of what had been done to him." For all Philby's charm ("that intoxicating, beguiling, and occasionally lethal English quality"), modern readers will still find it difficult to imagine a world of gentlemanly spy-versus-spy games all these hysterical years later.Gripping and as well-crafted as an episode of Smiley's People, full of cynical inevitability, secrets, lashings of whiskey and corpses.
