Both these books have been prompted by the recent release of MI5 files on Eddie Chapman, a small-time crook who as ‘Zigzag’ became one of the most successful double agents run by the British against the Germans during the Second World War.

Ben Macintyre’s publishers have been trumpeting Chapman’s as an untold story, which rather sets to one side his three (somewhat bowdlerised) autobiographies and a ropey film version which starred Christopher Plummer as Chapman. It also featured Gert Frobe – Goldfinger himself – as one of the Abwehr case officers who