Scan barcode
sackofbeans's review against another edition
2.0
My decision for reading this one was a little convoluted. I went to go watch the roll-out of the Delta IV Heavy rocket which was soon to launch and carry the Parker Solar Probe to the sun. It was a big rocket.
I got to the neighboring launchpad a couple of hours early, as it made little sense to drive the long distance home and back, so I had some time to kill. But I did not bring a book with me. But I had my Kindle! And lots of ebooks I've downloaded over the years! Oh, wait, no, I had purchased a ton of ebooks but only downloaded... four. And there ain't Wi-Fi out at the launch pads.
The Honest Spy was the most interesting, un-read, fictional (I make sure I alternate between reading fiction and non-fiction so I don't get burned out on reading) book available on my Kindle at the time. And I'm not entirely for sure where it came from, I'm going to guess it was a Kindle First Reads or whatever, one of those optional free books you can download every month as an Amazon Prime Member. They let you pick from four books that all sound kind of "meh" so you go with the one that sounds the least dull, because hey, it's free.
So this is a review of a not-the-most-dull book a person can read when they have no other options because they didn't think ahead. Expect great things!
I'm going to spoil the twist ending revealed in the afterward: this book was based on a real person who actually existed. If I knew that from the beginning maybe I would have enjoyed it more, that's my own fault, but I try not to know too much about a book before going into it so I likely only glanced at the description.
But I kept finding myself removed from the story because of how silly cliche American Hollywood it felt at times.
The main character Fritz loves his home country of Germany. But oh man he hates Nazis and what they're doing to it! His boss calls and yells at him that he needs to leave his daughter behind in Africa so he can go be a spy and take down the Nazis. He works his way up through the Nazi ranks, finds some British Intelligence folks who don't want to pay him any attention, finds some AMERICAN YEAH BUDDY Intelligence folks who tell him he's the best there ever was and really appreciate him giving them all sorts of neat details like where the Nazis plan on attacking, what they're dong to the Jews, and where Hitler lives and works and plays. Fritz puts his life in danger regularly FOR FREE because Nazis suck.
Fritz also gets away with never joining the Nazi party or having a picture of Hitler on his office wall, which I would think a few other Nazis would make a bigger deal about but they only kind of tease Fritz about it.
My favorite... I don't know if it was an intentional joke, but idea carried out throughout the novel was Fritz refused to say "Heil Hitler", and instead would respond to anyone yelling it to him with his own defiant "Hi Hitler!"
I'd like to think the other characters that heard this felt a little confused and awkward. "Does he not know? Surely he must know it's heil not hi. After all, I'm not Hitler. Maybe he has a speech impediment? No, he can't, the Gestapo would have thrown him over a ledge by now if he did. He's high up with the Nazis so... maybe I just misheard him. Let me cough and shuffle my feet and walk away with my head down and pretend this whole thing never happened."
There's a big romantic subplot where Fritz is in love with a woman already married to a Nazi sympathizer. I wasn't sold on it.
It may be there was something lost in translation. Perhaps the details about the actual person were scarce enough that a lot of details were made up and so weren't convincing enough. For me, this was a book I had to force myself to get through, happily putting it back down every time I completed a single chapter so I could get on with my life.
I would like to point out that the character of Fritz stands in stark contrast to Howard W. Campbell, Jr, the main character of Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night, one of my all-time favorite books. Where Mr. Campbell was a spy who mastered the appearance of being a Nazi so much he fooled even himself, Fritz manages to finds ways to stay true to himself and his beliefs. The latter may have actually happened, but the former was a lot more fun to read.
If anything, The Honest Spy has me aware of and wanting to read a biography on the actual Fritz the person.
I got to the neighboring launchpad a couple of hours early, as it made little sense to drive the long distance home and back, so I had some time to kill. But I did not bring a book with me. But I had my Kindle! And lots of ebooks I've downloaded over the years! Oh, wait, no, I had purchased a ton of ebooks but only downloaded... four. And there ain't Wi-Fi out at the launch pads.
The Honest Spy was the most interesting, un-read, fictional (I make sure I alternate between reading fiction and non-fiction so I don't get burned out on reading) book available on my Kindle at the time. And I'm not entirely for sure where it came from, I'm going to guess it was a Kindle First Reads or whatever, one of those optional free books you can download every month as an Amazon Prime Member. They let you pick from four books that all sound kind of "meh" so you go with the one that sounds the least dull, because hey, it's free.
So this is a review of a not-the-most-dull book a person can read when they have no other options because they didn't think ahead. Expect great things!
I'm going to spoil the twist ending revealed in the afterward: this book was based on a real person who actually existed. If I knew that from the beginning maybe I would have enjoyed it more, that's my own fault, but I try not to know too much about a book before going into it so I likely only glanced at the description.
But I kept finding myself removed from the story because of how silly cliche American Hollywood it felt at times.
The main character Fritz loves his home country of Germany. But oh man he hates Nazis and what they're doing to it! His boss calls and yells at him that he needs to leave his daughter behind in Africa so he can go be a spy and take down the Nazis. He works his way up through the Nazi ranks, finds some British Intelligence folks who don't want to pay him any attention, finds some AMERICAN YEAH BUDDY Intelligence folks who tell him he's the best there ever was and really appreciate him giving them all sorts of neat details like where the Nazis plan on attacking, what they're dong to the Jews, and where Hitler lives and works and plays. Fritz puts his life in danger regularly FOR FREE because Nazis suck.
Fritz also gets away with never joining the Nazi party or having a picture of Hitler on his office wall, which I would think a few other Nazis would make a bigger deal about but they only kind of tease Fritz about it.
My favorite... I don't know if it was an intentional joke, but idea carried out throughout the novel was Fritz refused to say "Heil Hitler", and instead would respond to anyone yelling it to him with his own defiant "Hi Hitler!"
I'd like to think the other characters that heard this felt a little confused and awkward. "Does he not know? Surely he must know it's heil not hi. After all, I'm not Hitler. Maybe he has a speech impediment? No, he can't, the Gestapo would have thrown him over a ledge by now if he did. He's high up with the Nazis so... maybe I just misheard him. Let me cough and shuffle my feet and walk away with my head down and pretend this whole thing never happened."
There's a big romantic subplot where Fritz is in love with a woman already married to a Nazi sympathizer. I wasn't sold on it.
It may be there was something lost in translation. Perhaps the details about the actual person were scarce enough that a lot of details were made up and so weren't convincing enough. For me, this was a book I had to force myself to get through, happily putting it back down every time I completed a single chapter so I could get on with my life.
I would like to point out that the character of Fritz stands in stark contrast to Howard W. Campbell, Jr, the main character of Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night, one of my all-time favorite books. Where Mr. Campbell was a spy who mastered the appearance of being a Nazi so much he fooled even himself, Fritz manages to finds ways to stay true to himself and his beliefs. The latter may have actually happened, but the former was a lot more fun to read.
If anything, The Honest Spy has me aware of and wanting to read a biography on the actual Fritz the person.
zimaconfession's review against another edition
5.0
I stopped reading after only a few pages. For some reason I didn't like the writing, it was strange and confusing. So why have I given five stars?
Many months later I tried again. This time I ploughed on through the parts that I had dismissed as propaganda and found the story to me much more nuanced than I had first thought. In fact, it's one of the best and most interesting stories I've ever read. Apparently, it's not particularly true to the real facts (not in every respect). I think this can be excused. How many real facts are definitely known about a man in this position?
Many months later I tried again. This time I ploughed on through the parts that I had dismissed as propaganda and found the story to me much more nuanced than I had first thought. In fact, it's one of the best and most interesting stories I've ever read. Apparently, it's not particularly true to the real facts (not in every respect). I think this can be excused. How many real facts are definitely known about a man in this position?
fayster's review against another edition
3.0
He may have been an "honest" spy, but the book itself was a fictionalized account of his life, which was weird. Why do a book about a real-life person and make it into a fictional account with made up wife, daughter, etc. Overall, though, interesting read, fabulous story - somewhat tragic in the end. But since that part's not real...guess it doesn't matter.
ssindc's review
3.0
Not your everyday WWII spy novel, and by no means perfect, but a sufficiently gratifying pick from the Kindle First heap and a relatively quick read.
As for genre, this seems to be a mash-up between historical fiction, a garden variety page-turning spy novel, and ... something else, but I'm not sure what. On one level, the novel chronicles - and, apparently, takes any number of liberties with - the career of a (subsequently) celebrated spy, an actual historical figure, of whom there, apparently, was a rather definitive biography written in 2003 (in French), later translated into German (2004) and English (2004 or 2005), A Spy at the Heart of the Third Reich: The Extraordinary Story of Fritz Kolbe, America's Most Important Spy in World War II. Having not read the non-fiction version - which one must assume is more factually accurate but also more dry than this story - it's impossible to compare. Frankly, I wish I'd read the biography first so that I could compare them; but, having read this, I don't see myself rushing out to read another 300 pages on the same topic (particularly now that I spent some time doing online research and figuring out what portions of the story do and don't align with the mostly widely accepted historical record)...
Of course, we're reading a translation, so I'm in no position to fully apportion my (mostly minor) frustrations with the book between the author and the translator. There's no question that it's a compelling story, and any life, let alone such a life, at such a time and place, must have its share of joys and sorrows. My gripe with the author is that I didn't find two of the major artistic decisions worth the candle. The temporal ping-pong between the retelling and the action story didn't seem worth it (to me) in light of the minimal pay-off at the end; nor did the introduction of a reporter and a photographer (two additional voices that, again, to me, felt like interlopers) add much to the suspense, texture or overall presentation. (OK, introducing romantic tension between characters unrelated to the historical story line had me scratching my head, particularly since we learn that the definitive biography of Kolbe was written long after his death.) Other than that, I wasn't inspired by the prose, and I found the vocabulary inconsistent and, in spots, disappointing. But these are mostly quibbles that kept an enjoyable, entertaining, informative, page-turning read from being something really special.
As for genre, this seems to be a mash-up between historical fiction, a garden variety page-turning spy novel, and ... something else, but I'm not sure what. On one level, the novel chronicles - and, apparently, takes any number of liberties with - the career of a (subsequently) celebrated spy, an actual historical figure, of whom there, apparently, was a rather definitive biography written in 2003 (in French), later translated into German (2004) and English (2004 or 2005), A Spy at the Heart of the Third Reich: The Extraordinary Story of Fritz Kolbe, America's Most Important Spy in World War II. Having not read the non-fiction version - which one must assume is more factually accurate but also more dry than this story - it's impossible to compare. Frankly, I wish I'd read the biography first so that I could compare them; but, having read this, I don't see myself rushing out to read another 300 pages on the same topic (particularly now that I spent some time doing online research and figuring out what portions of the story do and don't align with the mostly widely accepted historical record)...
Of course, we're reading a translation, so I'm in no position to fully apportion my (mostly minor) frustrations with the book between the author and the translator. There's no question that it's a compelling story, and any life, let alone such a life, at such a time and place, must have its share of joys and sorrows. My gripe with the author is that I didn't find two of the major artistic decisions worth the candle. The temporal ping-pong between the retelling and the action story didn't seem worth it (to me) in light of the minimal pay-off at the end; nor did the introduction of a reporter and a photographer (two additional voices that, again, to me, felt like interlopers) add much to the suspense, texture or overall presentation. (OK, introducing romantic tension between characters unrelated to the historical story line had me scratching my head, particularly since we learn that the definitive biography of Kolbe was written long after his death.) Other than that, I wasn't inspired by the prose, and I found the vocabulary inconsistent and, in spots, disappointing. But these are mostly quibbles that kept an enjoyable, entertaining, informative, page-turning read from being something really special.
bbnut45's review
3.0
Wish that I had read the true story of Fritz Kolbe rather than this fictional account. The story was good but kept wondering “did this really happen?” Amazing bravery was shown by Mr. Kolbe.
christycd25c's review
4.0
this was a really good look at a side of the war we dont usually see. well drawn characters. enough ambiguity to be interesting not so much as to be annoying. worth your time.
arnicas's review
3.0
Annoyingly histrionic main character does things like stab pictures of Hitler with a fork. Along with the spying of course.
More...