On a chill December night in 1942, a Nazi parachutist landed in a Cambridgeshire field. His mission: to sabotage the British war effort. His German masters called him Fritz or Fritzschen. The British police knew him as Eddie Chapman, ‘a dangerous man and associate of thieves', and believed he was still in prison. Within weeks Chapman was in the hands of MI5 and operating as Agent Zigzag, opening the most sensational chapter in the history of British espionage.

Unpredictable, dashing and louche, Chapman proved to be a handful for both his German and British spymasters. In the estimation of the Nazis he was their super-spy, to whom they awarded the Iron Cross for ‘heroics' in Britain and occupied Europe; in the estimation of MI5, Zigzag had ‘the courage to achieve the unbelievable'. He diverted the V1 flying bombs away from London, deceived the Germans with false information, and nonchalantly volunteered to assassinate Hitler, all with the same smooth confidence that made him a natural spy, and irrestible to women.

But the restless Chapman courted contradiction as keenly as he embraced adventure. Inside the traitor lay a patriot; inside the villain, a man of conscience. The problem for Chapman, his spymasters and his many lovers was to know where one ended and the other began.

Ben Macintyre weaves together diaries, letters, and memories of the living, along with fascinating top-secret MI5 files never before made public to create an exhilarating account of the many lives of Eddie Chapman. As MI5 concluded, ‘The story of Eddie Chapman is different. In fiction it would be rejected as improbable.'