You think books have covered everything there is to write about World War II skullduggery, and then you stumble upon the book about how spies used Monopoly to pull the wool over Nazis’ eyes.
The endlessly popular and sometimes just plain endless game figured into the war in several ways, according to “Monopoly X,” by game designer and expert Philip E. Orbanes: Soldiers and others filled downtime by buying up Park Place and Atlantic Avenue, of course. But, less conventionally, some spies were code-named with monikers that echoed the games’ playing pieces, including a quadruple crosser named Harold Cole, who was known as Top Hat, and a female agent that, Orbanes writes, was named Benoîte Jean but called herself Nori (a backwards version of “iron,” another playing piece).
“Monopoly X” is at its most compelling and convincing in its opening chapters, which will appeal to fans of Ben Macintyre books about WWII such as “Operation Mincemeat” and “Agent Zigzag.”
It begins at Colditz Castle, the German fortress where escape-prone Allied officers were held captive. When a package arrives, containing Monopoly board games that supposedly were sent by a relief agency for the entertainment of the officers, Orbanes does a terrific job of supplying details that make the scene vivid.
It starts with Capt. Patrick Reid, a Brit who was in charge of escape efforts: “Reid directed two of the Monopoly games, which were genuine, to the makeshift library where books and games were available to all POWs. He knew in advance that the third game would be ‘loaded.’ A subtle red dot added to the Free Parking space of its board provided verification.”
Hidden in the “loaded” game were items useful to escapees, including maps, money and a special saw that, according to Orbanes, came in handy in multiple ways. There’s an against-the-odds heroism in his opening chapters that brings to mind the classic movie “The Great Escape” and that promises good things to come in “Monopoly X.”
Alas, “Monopoly X” proves to be one of those books that would have worked better as a magazine article. The rest of the stories are disjointed, poorly organized and, in some cases, have very little to do with the board game. Having encountered these stories through his Monopoly connections, Orbanes seems to have unearthed new material — I can’t find much about “Nori” online — but the way he presents that material is often confusing.
In the end, other than those first couple chapters, I wouldn’t recommend “Monopoly X.” If you’re interested in spycraft in the 1940s, you’re better off with Macintyre’s stellar work about espionage. And if it’s Monopoly that trips your trigger, you should go for Mary Pilon’s absorbing history of the game, “The Monopolists,” instead.
