Today Caramel reviews Ultimate Spy by H. Keith Melton, published in 2002. As usual, Sprinkles is taking notes and asking questions.
Sprinkles: So what is this book about Caramel?
Caramel: This is about the equipment and weapons that spies use.
S: I see. After reading so many Spy School books, you needed to get to some of the facts!
C: Yep. You know me and facts. I like them.
S: Okay, so what kind of equipment and weapons are we talking about here?
C: Some of them are really cool gadgets, like the match box pistol.
S: Sounds like something out of a James Bond movie. What is the match box pistol?
C: Yes, it sounds like it’s from a movie and it does look like it, too. It basically looks like a metal match box, but a barrel can be attached, and it can shoot one bullet. So you can carry it around without anyone being suspicious that you are carrying a weapon. Or you could simply let it sit on a coffee table and they would not suspect anything.
S: I see. That is cunning.
C: Yes, it is, it’s crazy. There are so many little and big things that they have made that spies can use as secret weapons.
S: And these are real, not for movie sets and such?
C: Yep, they are all things that were used at some point.
S: Oh wait, you used the past tense. So these are real but maybe no longer classified, like the government no longer needs to keep them secret.
C: Yeah, at least I think so. The author is a historian and the foreword of the book is written by some real people from the intelligence world. Some guy named Richard Helms who was apparently a former director of the CIA and Markus Wolf who was the former head of the East German Foreign Intelligence Service, the HVA. This is the real CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency! And I didn’t know about the HVA, but now I do.
S: Wow! That is pretty cool. This all probably means that they have a lot of other cool stuff they are using these days, and we don’t know about them.
C: Yeah, most likely a lot. And this book was published all the way back in 2002, so definitely they must have a lot of new tools and gadgets that they are not telling us about.
S: I did notice that our copy is from 2002. There is apparently a newer edition, from 2015.
C: Oh, that is cool. Maybe that edition has a few new things. But this book was more than good enough; it definitely has enough neat things to keep me busy!
S: I can see that!
S: Okay, so tell me a bit more about the book.
C: Sure. The content is organized around some themes like Famous Spying Operations, World War II, Cold War, Post-Cold War Spying, and Equipment and Techniques. Under that last one, there are pages on Cameras, Secret Operations, Counterintelligence, Clandestine Communications, and Weapons. Finally there is a section on How To Be a Spy.
S: Hmm, it is interesting that there is some historical context to this all. And there are lots of big words in there. Did you know what “clandestine” means for example?
C: Of course. It means secret.
S: Of course, I should have guessed that. You are a little bunny with a huge vocabulary. Anyways, what else can you tell us about the book?
C: There are 206 pages. And there are many, many, many pictures on each page.
S: That makes sense. You’d want to see these gadgets of course!
C: Yeah, I definitely liked looking at them.
S: So what was your favorite gadget?
C: Probably the match box pistol, it’s small, even a bunny spy could carry it around!
S: Wait, are you interested in becoming a spy?
C: Not really. I was teasing you. It is too dangerous. But it is neat to read about them. And you know I love my Spy School books, so this book helps me put what is going on in those books into some context.
S: Alright, so maybe this is a good place to wrap up this review. You seem to have really enjoyed this book.
C: Yes. And yes.
S: So what would you like to tell our readers as we end this post?
C: Stay tuned for more book bunny reviews!
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