MacArtur's Spies provides a vivid and detailed account of several spies operating in the Pacific theater during World War 2. It was really quite an interesting book with a colorful cast of characters. Some of the stories relayed were almost too good to be true. Overall, it was enjoyable. But sometimes I felt the amount of attention paid to, what I deemed, minor points felt overwhelming.

A thoughtful telling of a virtual unknown history of US involvement in the Philippines before and after WWII. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about the war in the pacific.

This is one of those books in which truth is stranger than fiction. Most Americans don't really know much about our history in the Philippines; even for World War II, most history buffs focus on the European theater. So this book was a real treat. It goes into what happened in the Philippines during the war, particularly with Gen. MacArthur's spy network.

It probably helps that this book is written by a journalist rather than a historian as the writing is well paced and accessible. Eisner follows three primary characters: Claire (the primary character and the "Singer" in the title), Boone (the "Soldier"), and Chick Parsons (the "Spymaster"). He brings them to life through his vivid writing. Some of the tales in this book seem worthy of Hollywood (expect a Hollywood adaptation of this book soon).

This isn't really a proper history of WWII in the Philippines, but Eisner provides just enough background history to let readers follow along (arguably at times he goes too far into detours). Recommended for history buffs.

MacArthur’s Spies” eBook was published in 2017 and was written by Peter Elsner. Mr. Elsner has published five non-fiction books.

I categorize this novel as ‘PG’ because it contains scenes of Violence. The story takes place mostly in the Philippines during the years just before and during World War II.

While several people are mentioned, the most prominent figure is Claire Phillips, a singer and Manilla nightclub owner. some of the others include Colonel John Boone who led a group of guerrillas. There is “Chick” Parsons a business man and US Navy officer who claimed to be a Panamanian diplomat to escape the Philippines with his family. Soon after he was on MacArthur’s staff in Australia coordinating guerrilla activities in the Philippines.

This books describes activities of US citizens in the Philippines during the war, as well as several Filipinos. These individuals, mostly civilians, gathered information on the Japanese military, gathered then smuggled supplies to prisoners of war and carried out guerrilla warfare. Their actions were a part of World War II I knew little about before hand. 

I found this book to be very interesting. I enjoyed the 9+ hours I spent reading this 362 page non-fiction history. I found it surprising what these and others were able to accomplish under the noses of the occupying Japanese military. The cover art is OK. I give this novel a 4 out of 5.

Further book reviews I have written can be accessed at https://johnpurvis.wordpress.com/blog/.

My book reviews are also published on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/31181778-john-purvis).

4.5*
This book almost reads like a spy novel. It details the exploits of various spies and guerilla fighters during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines 1942-1944. All of it actually happened. Some American and Filipino soldiers never surrendered. They hid out in the mountains. MacArthur sent word that they were not to attack the Japanese, because the Japanese would bring down horrible reprisals on innocent civilians. So they mostly collected intelligence and stole supplies from the Japanese. Not until near the end of the war did they actually attack the Japanese troops.
One of the heroes is Claire Phillips, whose code name was "High Pockets." She started a night club called Madame Tsubaki in Manila. It was very popular with Japanese officers and soldiers. She and her beautiful hostesses would get the Japanese drunk and get information which she sent to John Boone, the leader of the guerillas in the mountains. She spent thousands of pesos(2 pesos=$1) of her own money to buy food, clothing and medical supplies for the guerillas and prisoners of war. Testimony in the court trial after the war proved that many would have died were it not for her efforts organizing a supply chain to get supplies to POWs and guerillas. Unfortunately a mean spirited US government denied most of her claims and she received a pittance.
The US government only recently, in 2009, agreed to compensate Filipino guerilla fighters. This was not mentioned in the text, but in the notes on sources.
The spymaster in the title is Chick Parsons who left the Philippines through a diplomatic exchange(he had falsely claimed to be a citizen of Panama). One of the author's sources is Peter Parsons, Chick's son.
The author has done a great deal of research and there are extensive notes on his sources and yes I read all of his notes. I recommend this book both to history fans and spy book fans.
Update Aug 16, 2017: I just watched the author talk about his book on CSPAN. CSPAN has a website booktv.org and you can access his talk on the internet. It is worthwhile if you haven't read the book and if you have, you will like being able to listen to the author talk about how he put the book together.
Thanks to the publisher for sending me this book through NetGalley.

Apologies to Penguin Random House and NetGalley. They sent me a free unfinished egalley of this book and I put off reading it until after it was published. This, I understand, defeats the spirit of the enterprise and the reason for the gift.

An enjoyable book mostly about an ambiguous personality, who went under a variety of names but was most frequently called Claire Phillips. Characteristics that made Claire a pathetic loser before and after the war -- an apparently unstoppable urge to deceive others, a thirst for excitement at any cost, and the need to shed and acquire identities as easily as the rest of us change clothes -- made her perfect for the job as proprietress and star attraction at a WWII-era Manila nightclub, as well as for moonlighting as a smuggler for Western POWs and conduit of information about Japanese troop movements.

Before and after the war, it made her into a bigamist and a teller of tall unbelievable tales, in which she, Claire, was the invariably the hero. She alienated people who tried to help her and did not seem to know when to shut up, take the money, and run. She tried to achieve fame in Hollywood and, predictably, Hollywood chewed her up and spit her out.

And yet, and yet, whatever the reasons, she managed, with others, to smuggle enough food and medicine into hellish Japanese prison camps to allow some of the inmates to survive and bear witness against their former tormentors. For that alone, she should be considered a hero, even if her claims of providing intelligence to General MacArthur (the basis for the somewhat misleading title) seem exaggerated.

Available now: MacArthur's Spies by Peter Eisner

****4/5 stars

Happy 4th of July from The Soldier, the Singer, and the Spymaster who defied the Japanese in World War II

Recommended readers:

History Buffs
World War II buffs
Spy novel fans
Here's my Rankings:

4/5 overall
REVIEW FROM BOOKS FOR HER:

What's better than a World War II spy novel with a enigmatic woman at the center? A completely true one.  MacArthur's Spies tells the story of Claire Phillips, an American singer adept in the art of  deception who remained in Manila during its occupation by the Japanese. Together with naval intelligence officer "Chick" Parsons and insurgent leader Colonel John Boone, Claire leads a cast of colorful characters in this work of historical non-fiction that reads like a novel, is set in a nightclub, and has been compared to Casablanca.

Available at Amazon and bookstores everywhere

Introduction

MacArthur's Spies is a harrowing tale of heroism and espionage in the Philippines during World War II. The author chose to focus on the people and events surrounding three main players: Claire (the primary character and the "Singer" in the title), Boone (the "Soldier"), and Chick Parsons (the "Spymaster"). It is broken into five parts: 1) Claire's life before WWII and the Philippines leading into war with Japan; 2) war in the Philippines and the US surrender; 3) life in the Philippines under Japanese occupation; 4) liberation by the US and life immediately following the war; and finally 5) Claire's life in her later years and her battle to get compensation from the US government.

The story

I call myself a World War II history nut, but I have a shameful confession - I am one of those who focuses mostly on the European theater, especially the Holocaust. I know very little about the Pacific theater, especially other than Pearl Harbor. Shameful, I know! I chose to read this book in an effort to remedy that and I'm sure glad I did. Despite the somewhat misleading title, the book mostly focuses on Claire - her life, her relationships, her many aliases, and her contributions to the resistance efforts. She was a woman of many mysteries, having married at least four times and somehow adopted a little Filipino girl along the way. Though she aspired to be a performer, she wasn't successful until she opened a nightclub in Manila during the Japanese occupation. At that point she became "Madame Tsubaki," and one of the leaders of the efforts to surreptitiously support both the American POWs interred on the islands and the guerrillas hiding in the densely forested hills. Boone was her contact with the guerrillas. He had escaped capture during the US surrender and led a large contingent of American and Filipino fighters. He was in direct contact with General MacArthur himself via the spymaster, Chick Parsons. Chick had originally escaped imprisonment by masquerading as a somewhat-legitimate diplomat. After his escape, he asked to return and be put to work in the efforts to recapture the Philippines. Without spoiling too many details, we know the historical outcome - MacArthur did indeed return in resounding triumph to liberate the Philippines and vanquish the evil (in this instance) Japanese. He credited much of the success of his campaign to the intelligence gathered by Claire, Boone, Parsons, and their extended network. Many American POWs and guerrillas also owed their lives to Claire and others who provided supplies and money whenever possible. Claire returned to the US a hero. She even wrote a book and had a movie made, although both suffered from the Hollywood effect of an over-eager ghost writer. She spent years trying to get compensation from the US government for all of the money she spent of her own funds to help the guerrillas and POWs. Due to many factors, including the incredible number of people making similar claims, Claire only received a fraction of what she spent. The Filipino people honored her sacrifice after her death by memorializing her in the capitol building in Manila.

Literary analysis

This book was written by a reporter, and as such it carries with it that style. It is fast-paced and filled with facts expounded by conjecture. Mr. Eisner did a ton of research, even dusting off the court documents from Claire's claim. He is to be commended for his hard work in being thorough, even traveling to the Philippines and interviewing family members and survivors. Claire was a mysterious character and given what little is truly known about her identity, Mr. Eisner did a wonderful job of making her an intriguing character. I only wish he'd been able to expound more on Boone and his troops, or on Chick Parson's harrowing experiences being spirited back and forth behind enemy lines on submarines. There's no doubt that Claire was a hero in her own right; I just would have liked to know more about the other heroes listed in the title (namely Boone and Parsons).

The format in the digital version was all over the place and at times this made it difficult to read. However, I have a feeling this is due to it being an advanced copy adapted for Kindle (similar to a PDF) and is not the fault of the publisher or author.

There were also times that sentences and/or phrases were awkwardly repeated, or the editing wasn't complete so that the sentence structure was clumsy. Again, with a final edit I'm sure this will be corrected. It in no way detracted from the story itself.

My only other criticism is that I would have like to have seen any photos that survived. The author mentions a specific photo - that of Peggy in front of the Tsubaki Club - several times. Why wasn't it included? Again, this might be due to the nature of this particular digital format. Still, I might have to google that photo as well as others of Claire, Boone, etc. They're such intriguing characters!

Conclusion

While I still maintain that the title is a little misleading (this is really a book about Claire, with asides about her "supporting cast" and "costars"), the book itself is very enlightening. I had no idea that the Philippines were so crucial in the Pacific war, let alone how much the American POWs and Filipinos suffered (aside from the Bataan Death March - everyone knows about Bataan...I hope...). I would definitely recommend this book for it's educational value alone, let alone the heroism of the people it portrays. I will always have the utmost respect for "The Greatest Generation," especially after reading accounts such as this. I am grateful to Mr. Eisner for highlighting these international heroes!

I received a free Kindle copy of MacArthur's Spies by Peter Isner courtesy of Net Galley and Penguin Group Viking, the publisher. It was with the understanding that I would post a review to Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and my history book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google Plus pages.

I requested this book as I have read a great deal about World War II and the description presented something that I had not read about. This is the first book by Peter Eisner that I have read.

While the premise of the book, The Soldier, the Singer and the Spymaster Who Defied the Japanese In World War II, is interesting, the author's writing style leaves something to be desired. The book tends to be herky jerky with abrupt endings to chapters and no smooth transition from one subject to the next. The content is good, although it gets a little tedious at times in exhaustive detail that adds little to the story.

My prejudice is that I have read other books dealing with World War II where the author's style makes it very engaging and the book progresses like a piece of fiction versus a somewhat dry recitation of facts.

I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in World War II and especially what occured in the Philipines, but be ready for a challenging read.

This book is riveting and keeps you thinking, "Just one more page." It is a love story, tale of heroism,and thriller in one. I love it!

A well-written book on a fascinating period of history! Before reading this book, I was somewhat familiar with the European Resistance to the Nazis during World War II but knew little about the resistance to the Japanese in the Philippines. "MacArthur's Spies" shed light on some of the players in that movement. The title, I feel, is a bit misleading. While MacArthur and some of the other spies and guerillas are peripheral characters, the book really focuses on the story of Claire Phillips, an American woman who spied on the Japanese while running a nightclub in Manila. Her story is certainly an interesting one, from how she got to Manila in the first place, to her activities with the underground network both in spying and in helping American P.O.W.s, to her imprisonment and eventual rescue.

Although this book does suffer a bit from a lack of structure, it is nonetheless interesting to read and clearly well researched. I would recommend it to anyone interested in World War II or history in general.

I received a digital copy of this book for free from the publisher and was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I express in this review are entirely my own.

An American woman in invaded Manila convinces the Japanese she’s no danger, and is allowed to open a nightclub, where she plays spy as she gathers supplies for the POWs and resistance.
That was a difficult slog, ending with a marathon session lasting till after three in the morning. In those four hours I read the entire second half, taking the story through the aftereffects of the invasion and all the way to silly McArthur’s triumphant return.
So after all that happened in those three years, what is there to say? This quote pretty much encapsulates it: “Good spies and heroes are not necessarily Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts. Claire Phillips was deceptive and foolish at times, but she also fought on behalf of the United States to defeat Japan in occupied Manila.”
The last part deals with the aftermath of her ego; had she told the truth about her exploits instead of embellishing, the FBI wouldn’t have been so skeptical and made things really bad for her. The book she “wrote” was bad enough, but there’s a passage about the movie’s publicity that was ridiculous in its hyperbole. A sad ending.
Meticulously researched, full of interesting and amazing anecdotes. Most of the book treated her like a hero, but to the author’s credit the last part brought her down to earth. Do wish there’d been more on Boone and Parsons, though.
3.5 pushed up to 4/5

With meticulous, sometimes bulldoggishly exhausting detail of minor points, Eisner paints a vivid picture of Manila before the war, a jewel of a city, cosmopolitan and pleasant to live in, cultured and beautiful. Business people from all over the world, including the USA traded there—and many settled to live.

Especially relevant today, Eisner shows how at first no one can believe that the peace will be disturbed—Japan won’t make it that far—and when that is proved wrong, just how unsettlingly fast the fragile infrastructure of a city can fall apart, leaving people scrabbling for food and clean water, and medicine as the conquerors stride among them slapping and striking anyone who doesn’t bow, or get out of the way, or who looks suspicious. He also describes what happened when the defeated forces surrendered—the lies the Japanese commanders told, before the atrocity called the Bataan death march.

And at the end of the war, with equally vivid description, he shows how the POWs under the Japanese were either slaughtered or forced into hell ships to be taken to labor camps in Japan; many of those ships were bombed, as no one knew that thousands of men were jammed knee to knee in the hold. He estimates 21,000 American POWs died this way.

So the rescue action to try to liberate the prisons became extra tense, as MacArthur’s forces fought, inch by inch, building by building (sometimes floor by floor) to retake Manila.

But that’s the general shape of the book. The main focus are the colorful figures who ended up as resistors and spies.

Central is the enigmatic Claire Phillips, a not-quite-professional American torch singer who had as many aliases as she did husbands—married serially, without benefit of divorce. She went back to Manila in 1941, with her adopted two year old daughter, and when Japan struck, at first she stayed with relations of one of her husbands, then she ended up a fugitive in the hills, working as a nurse until she was too ill to move.

After she ended up back in Manila, she eventually started a nightclub, which served as a cover for supplying food to Americans in the hills and to thousands of starved, beaten, an abused prisoners of war.

The girls who worked for her elicited info from the Japanese officers who visited the club, and she conveyed the info as well as what supplies she could garner to Colonel John Boone, an American soldier, who led a force of Filipino guerrilla fighters, most of whom hid in the hills under great privation, but many of whom sneaked into Manila under cover as workers, to fight back with covert strikes.

Then there was Chick Parsons of the U.S. Navy intelligence, who was also a businessman, polo player, and expat living in Manila. When Japan took over, he managed to escape by faking an entire embassy—he became the envoy from Panama, and pulled it off! When he returned, it was as a spy for MacArthur, coordinating the guerrilla efforts with the planned Allied invasion.

A host of others get less attention, such as Peggy Utinsky, who courageously followed her husband to Manila when he was ordered to report. She ended up taking care of Claire’s little daughter while Claire was acting under cover, and when Claire got violently ill. When he was killed in action, Peggy became an alcoholic, but still kept working undercover; in the brutal last days of the war, when Claire was captured and taken for interrogation and torture, she ran to the hills, where she began to break down. Later she ended up in prison with Claire, and the two women’s relationship unraveled, to the point that after the war, they each accused the other of various things.

Also with less attention were the Filipino heroes working against the conquerors, many alongside the foreigners caught there: the Roxas brothers, famous in Manila, who maintained a dangerous line between cooperation with the conquerors and secretly helping the resistance. Then there was Fely Corcuera, who faithfully helped Claire and acted as courier; Lorenza Amusategui, whose husband Ramon was a real hero, working tirelessly for the underground resistance, and in the last days of the war, when the Japanese commander became even more savage at hunting down resistance, insisted that all his contacts, including Claire, blame him for everything, as he knew he would get caught and eventually killed. And he did. Naomi Flores was another largely unsung hero, then there was Roy C. Bennett, who endured over a year of torture and privation.

Eisner shows how complex these people were: heroism comes in many types, and it can have its fallout. The after war story is particularly messy, as after war stories often are. Overall, it makes absorbing reading, touching on the heroism of the Filipinos under horrible conditions, and relevant today, what with self-absorbed pirates masquerading as politicians thumping their chests and threatening to make war into a game.

MacArthur’s Spies is a fascinating tale of World War II in the Philippines. Focusing on the life and career of Claire Phillips, known as High Pockets, the book tells the almost novelistic story of the American and pro-American Filipino resistance during the war.

What a great book. When spies are always over the top here is a slice of TRUTH from WW2 about a woman who saved so many no one really knows. Do you want to know the power of #1, how one person can make a difference? Then read this book.

MacArthur's Spies is the story of those who not only endured the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, but actively resisted it. The focus is on Claire Phillips, a woman whose colorful past made her uniquely qualified to survive occupied Manila. Claire isn't the typical hero, she's a liar who had already lived under multiple aliases before the war. Eisner stops short of calling her a conwoman, but he isn't shy about discussing her many flaws. Despite this she is clearly a hero whose nerve kept people alive.

The book is well written and the action is easy to follow. Readers will be glued to the book, wanting to know what happens next. Eisner is good at connecting the events of the book to the wider context of the war. While the author made a clear effort to highlight the importance of local people in the events of WWII, I was left wanting to know more about them. It also would have been nice to have heard a little about the post-war Philippines.

4.5
what is it about:
MacArthur's Spiesreads like Casablancaset in the Pacific, filled with brave and daring characters caught up in the intrigue of war and the best part is that it's all true!" Tom Maier, author of Masters of Sex
A thrilling story of espionage, daring and deception set in the exotic landscape of occupied Manila during World War II.
On January 2, 1942, Japanese troops marched into Manila unopposed by U.S. forces. Manila was a strategic port, a romantic American outpost and a jewel of a city. Tokyo saw its conquest of the Philippines as the key in its plan to control all of Asia, including Australia. Thousands of soldiers surrendered and were sent on the notorious eighty-mile Bataan Death March. But thousands of other Filipinos and Americans refused to surrender and hid in the Luzon hills above Bataan and Manila. MacArthur's Spies is the story of three of them, and how they successfully foiled the Japanese for more than two years, sabotaging Japanese efforts and preparing the way for MacArthur s return.
From a jungle hideout, Colonel John Boone, an enlisted American soldier, led an insurgent force of Filipino fighters who infiltrated Manila as workers and servants to stage demolitions and attacks.
Chick Parsons, an American businessman, polo player, and expatriate in Manila, was also a U.S. Navy intelligence officer. He escaped in the guise of a Panamanian diplomat, and returned as MacArthur s spymaster, coordinating the guerrilla efforts with the planned Allied invasion.
And, finally, there was Claire Phillips, an itinerant American torch singer with many names and almost as many husbands. Her nightclub in Manila served as a cover for supplying food to Americans in the hills and to thousands of prisoners of war. She and the men and women who worked with her gathered information from the collaborating Filipino businessmen; the homesick, English-speaking Japanese officers; and the spies who mingled in the crowd.
Readers of Alan Furst and Ben Macintyre and anyone who loves Casablanca will relish this true tale of heroism when it counted the most."

what I thought of it:
Peter Eisner has a way of bring to life the characters that was and are in this book , as I was reading it felt like I could feel and hear everything his characters went though, it shows how strong and how brave and resourceful the people in the Philippines were during this time as they were in the face of danger ,knowing that if they were caught they could lose their very lives , how the Japanese were cruel ,and how they forced march the prisoners of war with the intent to kill, brutalize ,weaken and or demoralize the prisoners as possible along the way. This is a book that I think everyone should at lest pick up and read , so with that said I would love to say thinks to Netgalley for giving me a change at read and review this book in a change for my honest opinion. Will be picking up an actual copy when I can.

Overall, MacArthur's Spies provides a good overview of life in Japanese-occupied Philippines. I think readers will be able to see the struggle many went through. However, I do think the subtitle picked was not the best as the book noticeably focused on Claire the most. The others, including John Boone and Chick Parsons, were always mentioned either in regards to her interaction with them or to provided backstory for those interactions. A publisher summary I read compares the story to that of Casablanca. I do disagree as other than the nightclub setting for parts of the story and both cities being under occupation, the focuses of each were vastly different. MacArthur’s Spies was all about the struggles faced under enemy threat, espionage, and black marketeering. Casablanca was a love story featuring several of those elements, but the romance was undeniably the main focus. I do think that reading this book gave me more insight to life under the Japanese for those occupied, much like other works I have read with a European focus.

Will add link to a longer review on my blog when it is posted in April

Wow, what a fascinating book. I haven't read much about the war in the Pacific. I knew the Japanese were cruel, but I didn't understand the culture of why. It amazed me how brave and resourceful the people in the Philippines were during this time. I had to get through the first several pages -- the early life of "Claire" before the book really got my attention. At first I didn't care for Claire, but she did a lot of good for the POW's and the Americans. The courage it took for all these people to do what they did, boggles the mind. Many ultimately sacrificed their lives. I learned a lot and would highly recommend this book to others who enjoy History and reading about WW II.

I can't imagine the occupation, but between this, and the part of The Rape of Nanking that I read before losing the book to a fire, I can imagine a little more. Eisner put a lot into his research...trying to find divorce decrees from the early 1930s? sifting through FBI files? ...telling...

And he writes a strong, flowing narrative. This is a good story of something known to few, and rapidly being eclipsed by time.