Great Britain sends undercover police to arrest and extradite the Jelly Gang. While out on bail, Chapman and the rest of the gang flee to Jersey in the Channel Islands. After a botched job that results in an explosion at the Edinburgh Co-operative Society, Chapman is arrested.

While he is pathologically criminal, Chapman never uses violence. He belongs to a group of small-time criminals known as 'The Jelly Gang,' so named because they use blasting gel to crack open safes. The narrative then rewinds to 1939, depicting Chapman's life as a young hoodlum. Chapman parachutes to the ground before realizing he has somehow lost his map to the factory he is supposed to sabotage. Chapman's code name is Fritz, the all-purpose slur used by the British to refer to Germans. British intelligence, however, is already aware of Chapman's status as a spy after intercepting and decrypting German messages using recently cracked Enigma codes. Due to his erratic behavior and personality, Chapman's British intelligence handlers nicknamed him 'Agent Zigzag.' According to The New York Times, 'Ben Macintyre's rollicking, spellbinding Agent Zigzag blends the spy-versus-spy machinations of John le Carré with the high farce of Evelyn Waugh.' Macintyre begins in late 1942, when twenty-eight-year-old Chapman is already a German spy on his way to Britain where he plans to sabotage the de Havilland Aircraft Factory.

British journalist Ben Macintyre’s biography, Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal (2007), chronicles the story of Eddie Chapman, an Englishman who served as a German spy for the Nazis before becoming a double agent for the British Secret Service.

Agent zig zag