HONEY TRAPPED: Sex, Betrayal and Weaponized Love

The spy craft expert Schlesinger has produced the first book to fully examine the oldest and consistently effective piece of tradecraft, from the ancient world to cyber seductions. While the so-called 'honey trap' is a Hollywood cliché, it is also employed by virtually every intelligence service in times of war and peace. The work of femmes fatales and Romeo spies have shaped policy and history through seduction, betrayal and scandal. 'Ashamed? Not in the least. My superiors told me that the results of my work saved thousands of British and American lives... Wars are not won by respectable methods' - Amy Elizabeth Thorpe (Betty Pack), participant in a honey trap run by British and American intelligence services during WW2. The Stasi proved particularly adept in employing Romeo spies to romance women with access to secrets. More recently in 2013 FBI wire traps caught two Russian SVR lamenting the more mundane aspects of spy work and not receiving permission to play a Romeo spy. Today the Mata Hari tale has expanded into pop culture and with the increased portability of cameras, honey traps can now be more effectively executed and indeed there no longer needs to be physical contact. From the Bible's Judith and Delilah, Pandora, Chinese, Greek and Indian brothels and myths of love-allurement, here are merry monarchs, plotters and pimps, the Flying Squadron created by Catherine de Medici of gorgeous women despatched to foreign and domestic leaders acting as sexual shock groups, the Restoration, Hamilton in America before we see the modern era. 352 magnificent large pages.