A Spy by Nature by Charles Cumming (My Goodreads Review)

A Spy by Nature by Charles Cumming

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read another Charles Cumming story that I enjoyed. That was a Thomas Kell novel. This one, (A Spy by Nature) is about a character called Alec Milius. It is in the first person singular. As much as I enjoyed the other story with Thomas Kell, I found this one to be even more enjoyable. It got down to the nitty gritty more and gave an insight into recruitment and the depths that a spy might go to in order to infiltrate other organisations. This story was clever and involved industrial espionage at a corporate level. I liked the Alec Milius character. He is flawed in many ways but he is also creative and a very good liar. The entire plot is cleverly contrived as Milius presents himself as a disillusioned young man who is bitter and resentful at being unrecognised for his talents. He is bait for foreign CIA operatives - he is prey secretly hunting the hunters. It is not overly complex for the reader. Yet it is wonderfully devious as we see the groundwork laid out. It is also strange because the competitors are the Americans who are our allies in many areas of security. I will definitely read the second Alec Milius story after this one. If you like a good espionage story or John le Carre, then I would highly recommend this spy novel - splendid stuff.

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Single & Single by John le Carre (My Goodreads Review)

Single & Single by John le Carré

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another very exciting read from John le Carre. I read all the Cold War stories and was apprehensive about the post Smiley era tales. This along with 'A Delicate Truth' means my reluctance was unjustified. From the first page, I was hooked. In this story, an entrepreneurial businessman named Tiger Single leads his company on a big business venture with the new Eastern European nations from the post-Soviet Union era. Opportunities from Georgia. The seasoned British businessmen of Single and Single's various enterprises think everything will be a walk in the park. It all turns out to be a little bit more demanding than a park stroll. Dynamic story and I recommend it to any espionage/thriller fan.

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A Foreign Country by Charles Cumming (My Goodreads Review)

A Foreign Country by Charles Cumming

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A fast-paced spy thriller with all the ingredients. It moved quickly and the reader discovers the many intricacies of the plot through Thomas Kell. A disgraced former agent brought in from the cold to investigate something on an ad-hoc basis for British SIS. I don't want to say what it is, but one thing leads to another with further intrigue and then counter intrigue. It all makes for a stunning climatic conclusion. This was a good story with just one flaw in my opinion. The enemy intrigue, that is peddled, would never have got over the first hurdle in today's high tech world. That is my humble opinion. But despite this, it still makes for a grand story. I would have given a five star except for that one BIG plot flaw.

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A Small Town in Germany by John le Carré (My Goodreads Review)

A Small Town in Germany: A Novel by John le Carré

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Leo Harting in a low-grade admin worker at the British Embassy in Bonn, West Germany. It is about 1968 and there is political turmoil in Germany and also for Britain. Britain is trying to win favour with the German Federal Government with its application for Common Market membership. (Boy how the worm has turned in this day and age.) Leo has gone missing. So have a batch of top secret documents. One of them labelled green. Evidently, a green file is highly sensitive.

Back in the UK, a Foreign Office worker named Alan Turner is sent to find Leo Harding and, most important, try to collect the missing documents. Alan Turner is not liked by most who work around him. He is a Yorkshireman who can be abrupt and direct. He has no graces and does not fit well among diplomats. But then it is not necessary to like Turner. So long as he can get a job done. That's the Foreign Office point of view. The diplomats of the British Embassy in Bonn have a very different outlook. Another fine story from the master. If you like John Le Carre stories; you'll enjoy this gripping mystery.

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A Legacy of Spies by John le Carré. (My Goodreads Review)

A Legacy of Spies by John le Carré

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’ve always loved the Cold War stories written by John le Carré. Especially the Cambridge Circus related ones. This particular novel – A Legacy of Spies was set in modern times with the new Secret Service building looking out over the River Thames. The old Soviet v West conflict is over. However, there are two people who want to sue the British security service for past deeds. The story needs to go back to the late 50s and early sixties. Everyone involved in the espionage of this day is dead. All except for Peter Guillam. He is living out his retirement in Brittany France. On the family farm that he has inherited from his Breton Mother’s side of the family.

Guillam is summoned politely to return to the new modern spy HQ. The secret service is in a fluster over the two people bringing charges and a parliamentary investigation over the mishandling of the mission where agent Alec Lemus was killed in 1962. One of the people causing problems is Alec Lemus' German-born, son. The other is the illegitimate daughter of Elizabeth Gold.

John le Carré fans will know of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold title. Well, fasten your seatbelts and enjoy as Peter Guillam is forced to delve into old files and reports. Some tape recordings of Alec Lemus telling his unique story of a 1959 mission. In many ways, this is like a prequel and the reader sees Alec Lemus trying to smuggle an East German Lady out of the Communist bloc just before the Berlin Wall goes up. This was a real peach of a read. All the old favourites are resurrected. We see how Hans Dieter Mundt is recruited and learn of so many other consequences that would lead us to future Smiley stories of Karla etc. It is a fabulous blast from the past. Most enjoyable.

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Harry's Game - A Gritty Thriller (set in Northern Ireland during the mid seventies.) by Gerald Seymour

Gritty story set during the mid 1970s in Northern Ireland during the height of the IRA conflict. A high profile British government worker is targeted and killed by the Provisional IRA outside his home in London. The British Government cannot allow such an act to go by without a response - a severe response. In the corridors of power, ministers sanction the intellegence services to formulate a robust and hard hitting response. The British decide to target the very IRA assassin in his own area of believed safety - the Ardoyne area of Republican Belfast. 

A pro-Britsih, Northern Irish army officer, serving in the British army is sent under cover to locate and terminate the IRA assassin. Gradually the under cover oprative weaves his way around the streets of the Ardoyne and begins to blend in with the local population. 

Very pacey thriller that keeps one turning the pages, especially when the local IRA Brigade commander learns that a suspected British agent is within the no go zones of Republican Belfast. Can the Brit be found? Can the Brit home in on his prized kill - the IRA assasin?

Smashing read. Give it a go!

KGB defector's cold war Revelation

Metila Norwood worked for the British intelligence Service. She was also a KGB mole recruited in 1935. She penetrated the British secret Service establishment and was responsible for handing secrets to the KGB for many years.

 Much of the information passed to the Soviets was very valuable nuclear technology secrets that she got from her boss's safe. She would photograph them and then discretely return the original files back into the safe.

Read her story and how she was discovered in the Guardian newspaper link below:

KGB defector's cold war secrets are revealed at last | World news | The Guardian

More and More, People Become Uneasy with Government Spying

Many leading publications are becoming uneasy with all of this, but there is an enormous grey area. Government and Police are often seen as using security protection of all citizens as an excuse to compile data on everyone. Even people who do not offend. Some publication are voicing concerns against government spying along such lines below:

A government's first job is to protect its citizens. But that should be based on informed consent, not blind trust. Our cover leader in most of our editions looks at this point. 

Even allowing for the need to keep some things clandestine, Americans, we argue, need a clearer idea of what their spies are doing in their name. In Europe, however, we feature our special report on Germany: the continent's "reluctant hegemon" should now take a firmer lead in the euro zone". 

John Micklethwait, Editor-in-Chief

China Steals Australian Intelligence Records Online

Australia’s Secret Intelligence Service has had it computers hacked by Chinese espionage mercenaries. This is before the new data records are opened. The report was made by an investigation body and it has caused considerable embarrassment for the Australian Government and China; Australia’s largest trading partner.

This is causing growing concern about Chinese hacking programs and the aggressive way information is being stolen by servers running from China.

Australia no longer regards China as a military threat, but this may be because China is the world’s second biggest economy and perhaps the Australian government refuses to see the wood for the trees. 

John Stonehouse MP - Czechoslovakia Secret Service - Communist Agent

British MP John Stonehouse

John Stonehouse was a British politician who caused great controversy during the early 1970s. He was born in Southampton in 1925 and died of a fourth heart attack in 1988 at the age of sixty two. His life was one of great intrigue because people believed that this Member of Parliament committed suicide in Miami USA when his clothes were found on a beach. This was in the year of 1974. What the public did not know, at the time, was what really surrounded John Stonehouse’s life.

There is a novel called ‘The Perfect Spy.’ in which there is a British character that I think is a little like John Stonehouse – very loosely of course, and I wonder if some of Mister Stonehouse’s antics might have been viewed by writer John Le Carre in shaping this very fine spy story.

It later transpired that John Stonehouse had been under increasing financial pressure because of failed business ventures and his cooking of business accounts. He was under investigation by UK fraud organisations so he transferred large sums of money and faked his suicide and assumed a new identity. With this new identity, he fled to Australia to start a new life with his secretary, Sheila Buckley.

It is believed that during the late sixties British and American Secret Services became suspicious that John Stonehouse was recruited by the StB (Czechoslovakia Secret Service)

In other words, John Stonehouse was suspected of being a Communist field agent for the Iron Curtain. He was brought before a commission but was able to successfully defend himself. In this time there was great concern that the Labour government had been infiltrated by KGB and some people of MI5 suspected Prime Minister Harold Wilson of being KGB. I’m sure this is laughable now, but there seems to have been some inroads made by Communist secret services into the British establishment and John Stonehouse with the Czech StB seems to have been believed later – long after his death and the dust had settled among the British public.

In 1980, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was believed to have agreed to a cover up concerning John Stonehouse’s espionage activity for the Czech secret Service who had recruited him by 1960.

If John Stonehouse had been questioned in 1969 and he had been able to evade conviction; he must have realised the wolves were closing in and it was time to flee. On Christmas Eve 1974, Australian police arrest Clive Mildoon (AKA - John Stonehouse,) believing he might have been Lord Lucan, another famous British fugitive that was never found. Instead they discovered that it was, the presumed dead British MP, John Stonehouse.

He was extradited back to the UK – still a Member of Parliament to face trial. His shocked wife and three children must have been very traumatised by all of this. He was not put on trial for being a Czech agent, but for fraud, theft and forgery and conspiracy to defraud. He was convicted and given seven years in prison. His health deteriorated during this time and he suffered three heart attacks and had to undergo open heart surgery. He was released in 1979 and worked for an East London charity. In 1981, he married his Mistress Sheila Buckley. His wife had divorced him while in prison.



John Stonehouse and Sheila Buckley after prison sentance

After his release, he had television appearances and gave interviews concerning his faked suicide, but revelations about his espionage past did not become public until 2010, twenty two years after he had died of a fourth heart attack in 1988.