This book doesn't do much more than re-hash rumor, gossip and innuendo--and some facts--that I've already read in better-written, more thorough and scholarly biographies of the Windsors. I didn't notice any glaring inaccuracies; on the other hand, I didn't notice that the author broke any new ground. He seems to have relied heavily on previously published biographies of the Duke, the Duchess, and the British Royal Family in general, all of which a serious Windsorite will have already read. Also--let's face it--we read books like this one to be titillated, and the author fails utterly to titillate us. Save your money.

But, the story is so tawdry & Jimmy Donahue so scurvy, it's a hard read. The author presents information about his upbringing that tries to make you feel a little sympathy for Donahue but it's hard to feel sympathy for such a loser. The Duke & Duchess of Windsor were wastes of human beings, too. The more you read about them the more discouraged you get. What wasted opportunities! They could have done so much good but were such selfish, self-centered & STUPID people. No wonder the Royal Family can't stand to hear their names mentioned. The book reads kind of like a prolonged Dominick Dunne article in Vanity Fair.

OK, so the author isn't going to win the Nobel Prize for Literature for this book. But why should he? It's a book about an affair. A tawdry affair at that.

Initially, I payed attention to the other reviewers and didn't buy the book. But I have a fascination with Wallis and Edward (as vapid as they might have been...)and wanted to know more about Wallis' relationship with Jimmy Donohue. I must have read at least 10 to 15 books about the couple, and despite what the one of the reviewers said, I've only come across a few rare references to him. This book fills in the gaps.

So is it great literature? No. Is it an interesting book? Yes, if you like the subject matter, and know something about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to begin with. I enjoyed the book.

Althought elegantly designed and filled with high-quality photos, this has got to be one of the most egregious books I have run across in years. Bloch, an associate of the Duchess' lawyer, has cobbled together numerous photographs which depict the Windsors at balls, on holiday (from what?) on the Cote d'Azur, in the Bahamas, in Germany, in nightclubs, etc., etc. It is difficult to read this book and not come away with the impression that, great love story though it may have been, the lives of this woman and her husband were an utter waste of everyone's time. How bored (and boring) they must have been! Unless you want to indulge in a little elegant notalgia, don't bother with this high-fashion trash.

This most biased reflection of Charles Eugene Bedaux demonstrates an underlying bias on the part of the Autoho. Unsubstantiated facts based upon Allen's prejudice are slanderous and if Bedaux were still alive, he would have set the record sttraight and possibly involved many prominent US citizens. Bedaux did much to styme the Naxi operarionf in France and this is totally ignored in this book.

This book charges that the Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII, gave Allied military secrets to Germany in a deliberate scheme to help the Nazis against his own country.

The British establishment, the author says, used Edward's love for Wallis Simpson as a pretext to force his abdication because of his pro-German views. Then, he says, that same establishment used Edward to spy on French military installations for Britain--but that Edward simultaneously passed the secrets along to the Germans through Charles Bedaux, a shadowy character with ties to both Edward and Adolf Hitler.

The book is built around a handwritten letter, in German, from Edward to Hitler, which the author says his father received years later from Hitler's architect, Albert Speer. The book surmises that Edward gave the letter to Bedaux, who hid it in his hat band, or elsewhere, and then personally delivered it to Hitler.

On the surface the letter is cryptic. Was Edward really trying to hurt Britain--or help Hitler put him back on the Throne? Was he being solicitous, or devious? If the circumstances surrounding the letter are indeed what the author claims, then this book has a real story to tell.

Unfortunately, the book's shortcomings as a serious history cast doubt on its conclusions. There is some original research, particularly with respect to the background of Bedaux himself. Most of the text, however, rests either on secondary sources or on no acknowledged source at all. The author does not cite the particular pages of the secondary sources, so it is virtually impossible for readers to evaluate the information for themselves. Worse yet, many highly accusatory and critical passages have no source references whatsoever, leaving frustrated readers to wonder whether the undocumented conversations and events actually happened. The overall tone suggests that the author has let his own animus toward Edward dictate the scholarship, rather than the other way around.

The author explains that many of the primary source documents have been destroyed, are not available for inspection, or are perhaps even being hidden by the British royal family itself. That, though, is not a license to make critical assumptions that result, essentially, in a charge of treason.

The letter appears to bear Edward's handwriting, as far as one can tell from the lithographic reproduction in the book. In an appendix the author recounts that a handwriting expert authenticated the letter. Sadly, however, he does not identify the expert, and the glaring absence of the expert's identity further undermines this book's claims.

Even if the letter is genuine, it does not prove the author's thesis. Edward was not anti-German, and he may well have thought that the Nazis were Europe's best defense against Soviet expansionism. He may also have been careless in his dealings with both Bedaux and Hitler. But that certainly does not mean that Edward would deliberately seek to harm the Empire that he served so long as Prince of Wales, and later as King.

The overreaching premise of this book makes the story of royal intrigue entertaining, but one should not uncritically accept all of the story.

Martin Allen's book „Hidden Agenda - How the Duke of Windsor betrayed the Allies" provides us with an interesting look behind the stage on which the beginning of the Second World War was taking shape. Martin Allen describes in considerable detail the interests of the various parties involved in this conflict - the actors, the observers, and the by-standers, and he adroitly shows how some of the players, at times, would switch from one category to the other.

The lynchpin of the book is a letter, supposedly written in late 1939 by the Duke. Its purpose was to introduce to Hitler the Duke's messenger, the Franco-American industrial consultant, Charles E. Bedaux who, in those early months and years of the war, was able to travel quite freely from one side of the „Sitzkrieg" front to the other.

A facsimile of the letter is shown in the book. Obviously, for a mere reader, it is impossible to say whether the letter is genuine or not. The (German!) text of the letter is, however, just ever so slightly off the track with respect to normal German style, grammar, and vocabulary that it may well have been written by a person, such as the Duke, whose command of the language was good, but not perfect. It would have taken an excellent forger to achieve such a convincing degree of (im)perfection.

The immediate military results of the Duke's overtures toward Hitler were twofold. They represent, in a way, each party's ante in the bargain: the Duke's information on the French defenses allowed the Germans to turn the „sitzkrieg" into a „blitzkrieg" in the summer of 1940, whereas the German contribution was to hold their panzers back when they reached the Channel, thus allowing the British Expeditionary Force to retreat from Dunkerque with acceptable losses.

At this point, the book argues more or less explicitly, it would have been possible for some sort of peace deal to be reached. However, the Duke's position at home had been undermined by internal machinations that had led to his resignation and he was unable to realize his ambition which, according to Allen, was to recover his throne through this admittedly risky alliance with Berlin.

The obvious argument that comes to mind at this point is that any peace with Hitler would have constituted an abandonment of Poland for whose integrity and protection the Allies had, after all, gone to war. We must realize, though, that at the end of September, 1939, when the war in Poland had come to its rapid end, the Germans had occupied only the western half of that country. The eastern half of Poland was, by then, under Soviet domination, because the Soviets had, on 17 September 1939 (when the victory of their German ally was evident) sent in the Red Army to take over the rest - and to hold on to it to the present day.

This overt act of aggression did not cause a stir in the Allied camp and voids the argument sketched out above. The value of Allen's book lies in its exposure of the duplicity of the policy of the Allies. Only five years later, the world witnessed and for the most part, welcomed the complete hand-over of Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe to Stalin who, by that time, had become the West's most valuable ally in the fight for the ideals of freedom and democracy. It took History a mere fifty years and millions of dead to rectify that situation. One wonders if the price that might have had to be paid to Hitler would have been quite as high as that.

This restaurant guide is worthless. The data used is old and useless. You are better off using free restaurant guides online. I will never buy a "Foley Guide."

It's been said that the relationship between the Duke and Duchess of Windsor was the "Romance of the Century," and that their love was "deep and true." If their romance was based on the prattle in their letters, then it was definitely sophomoric and banal. These letters read like two teenagers speaking baby-talk to each other. I realize that these people were insipid and shallow, but it puts their relationship in a whole other light. Stupid and self-serving as well.

If the inane intimacies of these two people were any more trite and juvenile, this would be a children's book. Mr. Bloch worked for the Windsor's French Lawyer, so he had access to their private letters. The "Love Story of the Century" turns out to be a childish relationship between an [] inadequate man and an overbearing obsessive-compulsive woman.