A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre - A 30-minute Instaread Summary: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal

PLEASE NOTE: This is a summary of the book and NOT the original book.
A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre - A 30-minute Instaread Summary

 

Inside this Instaread Summary:

• Overview of the entire book
• Introduction to the important people in the book
• Summary and analysis of all the chapters in the book
• Key Takeaways of the book
• A Reader's Perspective

Preview of this book:

 

Chapter One

At the age of twenty-two, Nicholas Elliott became a spy. Elliott’s father, Sir Claude Aurelius Elliott, Headmaster at Eton College, had powerful connections. When Elliott announced his desire to join the intelligence service, his father was able to arrange it for him.

Elliott attended prep school at Durnford, where he endured horrific brutality, then to Eton and Cambridge. He neither worked hard nor excelled academically, but developed a close friendship with Basil Fisher whose death during the Battle of Britain had a devastating effect on him.

In 1938, Elliott was invited to accompany Sir Nevile Bland, a senior diplomat, to The Hague, the seat of government in the Netherlands, to serve as his honorary attaché in the Foreign Office. This opportunity provided his first introduction into clandestine work, as well as exposure to Hitler. He left The Hague with the conviction that Hitler must be stopped and the best way to do this was to become a spy…