Randal's Reviews > The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg

One of the dullest books I've ever read.
Part of the problem is that it's so well-researched. Berg went to London for two weeks, where, wearing his usual white shirt, grey suit and black tie, he stayed at the Claridge Hotel and dined with this person and that person, although he did not submit timely expense accounts, and then he disappeared for two weeks, turning up in Stockholm, where he dined with this scientist and still did not submit his expense accounts -- while wearing his usual white shirt, grey suit and black tie.
Just a fantastic amount of work must have gone into researching that. But:
Who cares. And that's toward the end of his active spying at the end of WWII, before we get onto Moe didn't know what to do with the rest of his life so he didn't really do much.
It's not so much a narrative -- he's repeatedly portrayed as wildly charming but almost none of that charm comes across in the book ... he's discriminated against in a general, WASPish way in Princeton, but then having gone to Princeton opens doors for him with the OSS -- as it is a laundry list of an interesting but obscure life. The repeated inability to pull back that obfuscation leaves the reader a little puzzled even at the end about the subject of the book and eventually leaves one scratching one's head about why it's such a subject of focus: Berg went here but we don't know why; Berg went there but didn't talk about it. If you are happy making up exciting things Berg might have been doing during the lapses, the book's likely a better read.
I wanted very much to read and like this book. All I can say is I read it.