The Nine Lives of Otto Katz

by JonathanMiles (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2011

  $3.36

  Spies should be glamorous - James Bond in a Savile Row suit rather than Harry Palmer in a grubby mac ...In those terms, Otto Katz was perfect. He was a Hollywood playboy who hobnobbed with Fritz Lang, he inspired the character of Victor Laszlo in Casablanca, he was a drinking buddy of Bertolt Brecht and among his lovers he claimed Marlene Dietrich. He was even known to Noel Coward . ( The Times ). If you were to imagine the perfect spy, you may well be picturing Otto Katz. He was charming, suave, and utterly ruthless. In the golden years of the spy game, from Hitler's rise to power, through the Second World War, and on into the Cold War, Otto Katz was at the centre of Russia's web of international intrigue. His fingerprints can be found on one world changing event after another. Using recently released FBI, MI5 and Czech files, Jonathan Miles has created an action-packed story of the life (or lives) of one of the world's most successful spies. At the same time, he paints a vivid portrait of the shadow world that exists behind the headlines where the actions of a man like Katz can, and do, change the course of history.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2010

  $3.36

  He was one of the most effective agents ever to work for Soviet Russia. For the first half of the twentieth century his fingerprints can be found on one world-changing event after another. But who was Otto Katz? To the FBI, he was 'an extremely dangerous man'. The British Secret Service wondered if he was the 'Director of all Communist policy in the West.' In Prague and Berlin he was a drinking companion with the likes of Franz Kafka and Bertolt Brecht. To Marlene Dietrich, he was one of her many lovers. But to others, Katz was a passionate anti-fascist who witnessed Hitler's rise to power and was among the first to alert the world to the Nazi threat. He was a staunch Communist, part of the Soviet infiltration of England during the period when the Cambridge spies were being recruited. In Hollywood, he was a playboy socialite, political mentor to director Fritz Lang and a star among stars. His example inspired the character of Victor Laszlo in Casablanca and Kurt Muller, the hero of the Academy Award Winning Watch on the Rhine. To Noel Coward, he was a potential double agent. In the Spanish Civil War, he did Stalin's dirty work. Years later, some even blamed him for the assassination of Trotsky. In a captivating detective story, Jonathan Miles goes in search of the real Otto Katz - a brilliant, daring charmer, a double-dealing man with an unquestionable taste for the finer things in life who, nonetheless, served one of history's darkest masters - Joseph Stalin. Using recently released FBI, MI5 and Czech files, Jonathan Miles has created an action-packed story of the life (or lives) of one of the world's most intriguing, influential and successful spies.