DECEMBER BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION THREAD - Thursday's bookclub session and author chat here

[TillyBookClub]

Hi all, this is the discussion thread to come to this Thursday night 8-10pm for December's Book of the Month, Agent Zigzag. Author Ben Macintyre will be joining us from 9 onwards.

If you can't make the session and would like to ask Ben a question then do post it here now and we'll email it on. And if you want to post a question in advance pop it up here on this thread, and we'll email them to him. Ben will start with those on Thursday eve.

I'm hoarding the last of the pudding wine and Quality Street in anticipation (should be drinking something far more spy-like and sophisticated but never could stomach martini)

Did you manage to track doen his daughter, did she have any contact with her father after the war, does she know who he is

How old are your children now? I do like hearing how people juggle. I can't believe you take it in turns to write a book! That's hilarious. Who is writing one at the mo? Do you have big arguments if you are in the Writer position and are being a bit slack? "Hurry up, I want to get on with MINE!"

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OOh, ohh.....Ben backs my James McEvoy vote (although I imagine you came up with it first!)....I'm sure he could do it VERY well.

Also, Julian Fellows for the script would be very classy and I'm sure could give it a great period feel.

sophiewd

I never found the daughter he had by Freda...I later found out that she had died young. She never knew who her father was. But, astonishingly, after a book festival event last year I was appraoched by a charming woman who looked oddly familiar: she turned out to be Chapman's illegitimate daughter by ANOTHER woman...from after the war.

Clive Owen too burly and not mean enough. He needs to be skinny and have that bastard look that Law has. The sort of scrawny chap who would leave bruises on your hips after a night of passion. Actually I'd imagine it would be 2 minutes of slightly disappointing passion, the selfish bastard

so there could be more out there

Bloody hell...he got around a bit.

oh YES to Julian Fellowes!

mp: Breath deeply and think of something like fish eyes.

Kate is writing the book at the moment: her next novel is out in April.

From Tilly

interested to know if Ben thinks Eddie was a hero or not - he's not exactly noble but you do find yourself thinking he's got serious balls. Or maybe he was just always saving his own skin and the patriotism was really a well-judged move on his part?

No not a hero, at least not in the conventional way. Which is probably why I found him so interesting as a character. Most heroes are one-dimensional, but Chapman was a man of so many parts, most of them very bad indeed. Opportunism was uppermost, but he also had some extraordinary good qualities: not least his quite lunatic courage. I like the idea of a good man lurking, almost in spite of himself, inside a very bad one. I don?t think his patriotism was entirely self-serving ? particularly as it was potentially self-destructive.

had she known her father? And if so, was her perception of him similar to yours?

Where do you write? Do you have a set routine?

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Does the prison in Paris still exist as a museum, as again didn't know anything about it until your book. Also did you like him.

As an add on would you go out for a drink with him and trust him

She had met her father, though I think only briefly. Se was very warm about him, though I think she realised he was utter rogue.

On the subject of research, was there a point where you came up against brick walls, that M15 wouldn't let you go any further? And like mroningpaper asked earlier, did you come across Dangerous Territory?

Interested as my mother in law is Ralph Jarvis's daughter, and when she went to the Public Records office they wouldn't give her any info on him at all, becuase he was M16.

(she was thrilled to read it by the way, an dhas marked the three pages where he appears! she has masses of photos of their house in Lisbon, and describes it as an idyllic place and time)

And was it/has the Freedom of Information Act etc. made this sort of thing much easier to research?

stop it with the Rupert Everett suggestions. He's just all wrong.

Morningpaper asked: Were there any points where you were researching Agent ZigZag where you thought you might be getting onto Dangerous Territory? (Or do I just watch Spooks too often?)

Not possible to watch Spooks too often, in my view. No, never scary: in fact MI5 were extraordinarily helpful, giving me full access to their archive and even coming up with material that I had thought was genuinely lost. I was surprised, in a way, because the Zigzag case doesn?t really reflect all that well on MI5.

In reply to you Tilly, MI6 is far more reticent than MI5...indeed, they have still released very little though an "offical history" is due out next year.

Jarvis was a very good intelliegnce offier, by all accounts. (he comes into Holts The Decivers, I think) I seem to recall he was merchant banker in real life. Ronnie Reed was not too keen on him, because Jarvis was quite keen to do in Chapman before he caused any more trouble...

Hello Ben,
What drew you to the subject of spying? Were you ever in the business yourself? of spying , that is. Can't wait to read the book, it sounds terrific.