55 pages • 1-hour read
Max in the House of Spies: A Tale of World War II
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 25-35Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide features depictions of racism, religious discrimination, bullying, physical abuse, and emotional abuse.
Chapter 25 Summary
Ewen drives Max out of London but refuses to name their destination. Max admits he wants to go back to Berlin. Stein and Berg are shocked and warn him of the danger but Max explains to them that he must go back because his parents are there. Ewen says that Max must be “exceptional” at his training if he is to be sent to Germany.
They reach Tring Park, the Rothschild family estate which is being used by the intelligence authorities. Max has heard of the Rothschilds, a powerful banking family, as they were often named by the Nazis in antisemitic propaganda. Ewen says that Max will be looked after by his “Mother.” Max is astonished until Ewen clarifies that “Mother” means a spy’s female caretaker. Max is shaken but, when Ewen underscores that Max’s future will be decided by his performance, Max vows to be extraordinary.
Chapter 26 Summary
At the Tring Park gate, Sergeant Toby Thompson of the Military Police checks their car. Ewen instructs Max to call him Lieutenant Commander while on-site. They park at cottage number 3, where a young woman greets them. She introduces herself as Jean Leslie, Max’s “Mother.” Max thinks Jean is very beautiful and charming, apart from her crooked teeth.
Jean gives Max a tour of his cottage. Ewen leaves, leaving him and Jean together. Max feels overwhelmed being alone with Jean, to whom he is quite attracted.
Chapter 27 Summary
Jean gives Max a rucksack with some food inside and they leave to see the grounds. They go past a house called the “Large Cottage” as a sudden explosion rocks the building, and Jean shoves Max to the ground. Lord Rothschild, the estate’s owner and explosives expert, emerges from the smoke to introduce himself. Max admits to Jean that Rothschild isn’t what he expected.
Jean takes Max into a field for his first physical test: To climb a large hay bale. Jean easy leaps up but Max struggles. Berg also chews through the bale’s twine, sabotaging him. Max finally reaches the top, but Jean is already striding away, expecting Max to run after her.
Chapter 28 Summary
Near the mansion, Max is astonished to see exotic animals roaming the park. Jean explains that these were introduced by previous Rothschilds. A kangaroo grabs Max’s rucksack but Jean refuses to intervene, calling it part of his training. Max wrestles with the animal, then remembers that Jean has said there was food in the rucksack. Max deduces the kangaroo wants food: Reaching into the rucksack, he gives the kangaroo a sandwich, and the kangaroo releases its hold on him to take it. Jean explains the sandwiches are Marmite—yeast jelly—and that the kangaroos love it.
Jean confirms this encounter was a planned test that Max has passed. It has taught Max valuable lessons: to stay calm, determine the other side’s motivation, and use it to gain influence.
Chapter 29 Summary
Jean introduces Max to Lieutenant Chumley, an espionage instructor. During a walk, Chumley lectures Max on spy imperatives. Chumley is very tall and Max struggles to keep up with him. When Max’s thoughts drift, Chumley threatens to dismiss him. He shows Max a dead letter box hidden in a wall near to the entrance gate and gives him a secret note. Max puts the note in his pocket.
Chumley calls Sergeant Thompson over and instructs him and his team to stop Max from posting anything into the dead letter box. He explains that Max must place a correct message into the box within four weeks in order to pass his training.
Chapter 30 Summary
In his cottage, Max starts a secret letter to his uncle Ivor. When Ewen arrives for a debrief, Max hides it. Ewen discusses spy craft and, after he leaves, a conflicted Max tears up the letter and flushes it away. Stein asks him why he did this, but Max isn’t sure.
At night, Max lies awake, remembering each part of the day. Remembering the dead letter box, he panics, believing he has also flushed Chumley’s note. Unable to find it, he breaks down. Stein tells him to check his fifth pocket and Max finds the note intact. In it, Chumley asks “how do you spell my name?” (194). Max is a bit confused by this question but realizes he has never actually seen Chumley’s name written down.
Chapter 31 Summary
Jean meets Max early next morning. As they warm up for a run, Max asks Jean how to spell Chumley’s name and guesses at a phonetic version: C-H-U-M-L-E-Y. Jean says “sounds good to me!” before telling Max they will have a race every morning (196). They will run to the mansion, climbing the hay bale on the way. For every second Max is slower than Jean, he will be given a push up. Max struggles on the run and is easily beaten by Jean, but he takes comfort in the thought that he has learned how to spell Chumley.
Later, Max stakes out the dead letter box. When a car distracts the sentry, Max dashes to the wall and places a slip with his answer inside. He slips away, convinced he has succeeded already.
Chapter 32 Summary
Chumley and Jean take Max to meet Lord Rothschild, who unveils a training dummy covered with swastikas placed over vulnerable body points. When Jean demonstrates a groin strike, streamers burst from the dummy to show that she has struck hard enough. Max is put to work learning how to fight the dummy.
That evening, the team meets for dinner in the Large Cottage. When Ewen expresses concerns for Max’s safety as a spy, Max proudly announces he has already passed the dead letter box test. Chumley confirms Max posted a reply but declares it a failure because the name was spelled incorrectly. Max realizes Jean let him think he knew the spelling. She shrugs, letting him know it is all part of training. Max is warned by Chumley not to make another mistake.
Chapter 33 Summary
A day later, Max asks Sergeant Thompson for the correct spelling of Chumley’s name. Thompson refuses but talks with Max. Thompson mentions how the winter sun stays low and cold in England. Comparing it to Trinidad, where he grew up. Max and Thompson discuss being away from their homelands. Thompson reveals that he dislikes Britain and British colonial attitudes. When Max asks in surprise how he could join the British Army, Thompson tells him a story. He fought against British colonial rule in Trinidad with labor leader Uriah Butler, meeting a Jamaican woman who was secretary to the colonial governor while negotiating a transition of power. Thompson and the women fell in love, but she was relocated to Britain when the governor was recalled to England. To follow her to England, Thompson joined the British Army. Although he still feels the same about the British, Thompson says people will do anything for those they love. He reveals that he is now married to the beautiful secretary. They laugh together and Max silently vows never to betray Thompson’s trust.
Chapter 34 Summary
Training intensifies. Max improves in his races against Jean and his strikes on the dummy. Chumley drills him in evasion. Berg keeps undermining him with small acts of sabotage but Stein is more supportive. Gradually, Max learns to adapt under pressure.
In a debrief, Ewen lectures on propaganda and explains the Nazi doctrine of the Big Lie, where liars accuse enemies of the crimes they themselves commit. Max asks if Britain uses propaganda and Ewen says yes, but only for good purposes. Max remembers Ivor’s warnings and wonders if manipulation surrounds him.
Chapter 35 Summary
After two weeks, Chumley convenes a one-card poker game. The test is for Max to win against the team. He loses early hands, then adjusts, learning to bluff and read tells.
On the final hand, Max goes all-in and performs nervous tells. The adults think this shows he is bluffing but Max turns over a winning ace. He was double-bluffing. He explains that in Nazi Germany he survived by hiding his feelings while reading others’. The adults fall quiet, realizing he knows how to do this better than any of them.
Chapters 25-35 Analysis
These chapters focus on Max’s training sequence at Tring Park, developing the novel’s fantastical child spy plot premise. The depiction of Max’s alternative learning environment subverts traditional pedagogy, reframing education as a series of high-stakes, experiential challenges. Instead of receiving direct instruction, Max is plunged into situations that demand adaptation and strategic thinking, a structure mirroring the motif of pranks. The encounter with the kangaroo, for instance, is an orchestrated test of Max’s ability to remain calm, assess an opponent’s motivation, and leverage it. His handler, Jean, provides the lesson only after Max has independently navigated the crisis, solidifying the principle that in espionage, practical application precedes theory. This educational model, which prioritizes emergent problem-solving, is suited to Max, whose own triumphs have come from unorthodox schemes. The training hones his innate talents, channeling his creative defiance into the disciplined framework of spy craft. This approach supports the novel’s absurdist premise and narrative arc, strengthening the idea that Max, although a child, is a suitable and natural intelligence agent.
Max’s time at Tring Park therefore illustrates The Loss of Childhood During War, as the narrative strips away the normal context of childhood and replaces this with the environment of an adult operative. Max is given a cottage of his own, a mark of premature independence which delights him but also causes him consternation. The training is a process of compressed maturation, subjecting Max to physical exhaustion, psychological manipulation, and combat drills. The swastika-covered combat dummy which erupts in streamers like a childhood game is an example of how the novel mixes childlike and adult elements for comic effect, and to further serious themes.
These chapters explore Deception as a Tool for Survival and Resistance, presenting deception as the foundational, instinctual principle of espionage. The central training mission, which revolves around the dead letter box, signals the slipperiness of in intelligence work, where even instructions may not be what they seem. The challenge is a puzzle which relies Max’s awareness that “Chumley” has a different “correct” spelling. Max’s initial failure stems from his misunderstanding of the task, and his assumption that it is a simple, rather than a coded, request. As he is warned afterwards, “Bad information may get you killed” (204). The obscure name motif highlights the coded, deceptive nature of the world Max is entering. Similarly, Ewen Montagu’s lecture attempts to create a philosophical distinction between lies and the “fictions” that an agent must inhabit. This intellectual framing is immediately complicated by the practical realities of Max’s training. The poker game furthers this theme, moving beyond theory to the applied science of bluffing and emotional control. Max’s success is attributed to his lived experience, which he articulates with chilling clarity: “As a Jew living in Nazi Germany… that was my whole life” (227). This statement reframes his training, revealing that his most profound lessons in survivalist deceptions were learned under the Nazi regime. His excellence at the poker game, and the reasons for this, signal a reversal in authority and experience between Max and his adult handlers.
Max gains a positive example of how to navigate unjust power structures through Sergeant Toby Thompson. Thompson’s story of joining the army out of love resonates with Max, articulating a universal truth about divided loyalties. Thompson affirms Max’s own motivation when he states people will do anything for those they love, again stating the central thesis of the novel.
Unlock all 55 pages of this Study Guide
Get in-depth, chapter-by-chapter summaries and analysis from our literary experts.
- Grasp challenging concepts with clear, comprehensive explanations
- Revisit key plot points and ideas without rereading the book
- Share impressive insights in classes and book clubs