British Intelligence

WINNER OF THE AUGUST DERLETH AND ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARDS A masterpiece brimming with scientific splendor, magical intrigue, and fierce characters, from the author who “has reshaped modern fantasy” (The Washington Post) “[China Miéville’s] fantasy novels, including a trilogy set in...

AN NPR BEST BOOK OF 2020 “Thought-provoking...there’s certainly more than enough sharp writing and provocative content in this initial adventure to justify a sequel.” —Wall Street Journal There is a dark side to MI6 that needs men like Elliot Kane—volatile, inquisitive...

From the host of The Rest is Classified podcast, this is the secret history of MI6 - from the Cold War to the present day. 'The history of MI6 in the words of real spies' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'The best post-1949 account of British intelligence I have read' SPECTATOR 'As gripping as any novel'...

The first in an action-packed spy series introducing Lieutenant Dragan Kelly. It is 1942. HMS Visigoth has been torpedoed off the coast of German occupied Norway. Sole survivor Lieutenant Dragan Kelly finds himself behind enemy lines, unsure who to trust. The Norwegian resistance share rumours about a mysterious Nazi plant where an Armageddon weapon of terrifying power is under construction. Should Kelly escape to Russia or stay and investigate it? And what of the stunningly beautiful but enigmatic resistance fighter Sybilla? Kelly falls in love with her, but is she all she claims to be? ...

To the undiscerning eye, they were secretaries, typists, personal assistants, and telephonists. But those innocuous job titles provided the perfect cover for what were in reality a range of complex technical, clerical, and occupational roles. Often overlooked and underestimated by outsiders, the women of British intelligence encoded, decoded, and translated enemy messages, wrote propaganda, and oversaw agents, performing duties as diverse as they were indispensable.

Dealing with Europe is never easy It's Paris 1919 and the Peace Conference following the end of the Great War is proving anything but peaceful. In fact, it can be murder... A French Diplomat has been murdered. When the chief suspect turns out to be the girlfriend of Aldric 'Spunky' Stephens, Kit Aston is called in to investigate. The investigation becomes a race against time as Europe faces a deadly new enemy, intent on dragging it back into the carnage from which it has just escaped. The Kit Aston mysteries mix real life historical characters and events with crime thrillers full of red ...

From one of the foremost historians of the period and the acclaimed author of Inferno and Catastrophe: 1914, The Secret War is a sweeping examination of one of the most important yet underexplored aspects of World War II—intelligence—showing how espionage successes and failures by the United...

Fourteen-year-old secret agent Alex Rider is on holiday in southern France with his friend Sabina and her parents. Everything seems perfect, until ruthless assassin Yassen Gregorovich arrives. Shortly after, Sabina’s father is nearly killed in a devastating explosion. It turns out Sabina’s father was writing a story about legendary pop star and humanitarian Sir Damian Cray.

A fresh portrait of the man behind James Bond, and his enduring impact, by an award-winning biographer with unprecedented access to the Fleming family papers. Ian Fleming's greatest creation, James Bond, has had an enormous and ongoing impact on our culture. What Bond represents about ideas of...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Extremely funny . . . inspired lunacy . . . [and] over much too soon.”—The Washington Post Book World Now celebrating the pivotal 42nd anniversary of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy! Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The...

All chess games end in a murder... It's 1920, the murders of a trade unionist, a knight and a bishop shock Britain. The finger of blame seems to point to Russia. As the body count rises, Kit Aston plays a deadly game of chess with a Russian grandmaster where checkmate is a matter of life or death. The latest Kit Aston whodunnit is a gripping historical crime thriller, full of twists and hilarious one liners which fuses classic murder mystery with a spy novel. The Kit Aston mysteries mix real life historical characters and events with crime thrillers full of red herrings. No books are the ...

The third entry in the critically acclaimed Culture series, from British Science Fiction author, Iain M. Banks. The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents, changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue, dirty tricks and military...

It's the oldest question of all, George. Who can spy on the spies? Theres a mole in the Circus. Pulled out of (forced) retirement by his old protg, Peter Guillam, George Smiley must determine who among the high command at the British Secret Intelligence Service is in fact a Soviet spyone whos...

In the British state, intelligence does not begin with a single founding moment or a clearly defined institution. It begins instead as a tension, a contradiction embedded within the machinery of government itself. Public money is quietly allocated for secret purposes, debated in open parliamentary chambers where the very act of discussion risks undermining the thing being funded. Ministers stand to justify expenditure that cannot be fully explained, offering assurances that the work is necessary while acknowledging, sometimes indirectly, that its details must remain concealed.

From the twentieth century onward, women took on an extraordinary range of roles in intelligence, defying the conventions of their time. Across both world wars, far from being a small part of covert operations, women ran spy networks and escape lines, parachuted behind enemy lines, and interrogated prisoners. And, back in Bletchley and Whitehall, women's vital administrative work in MI offices kept the British war engine running. In this major, panoramic history, Helen Fry looks at the rich and varied work women undertook as civilians and in uniform.

The Black Door explores the evolving relationship between successive British prime ministers and the intelligence agencies, from Asquith’s Secret Service Bureau to Cameron’s National Security Council. Intelligence can do a prime minister’s dirty work. For more than a century, secret wars...

Here, for the first time, in a brilliant, panoramic portrait by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, is the definitive, often shocking story of the politics and the science behind the development of the hydrogen bomb and the birth of the Cold War. Based on secret...

As complex, turbulent and spectacular as the gas giant on which it is set, this novel from Iain M. Banks is space opera on a truly epic scale. “An enormously enjoyable book, full of wonderful aliens, a sense of wonder and subtle political commentary on current events.” –Publishers Weekly...

They were told the code was unbreakable. Then a shy mathematician cycled through the rain and proved them wrong. Alan Turing, Gordon Welchman, and the brilliant eccentrics of Bletchley Park who cracked the Nazi Enigma and changed the course of the war. The history books mention Enigma. They mention D‑Day. But they leave out the most important question: how did a team of crossword solvers, chess champions, and a man who couldn‘t tie his shoelaces break the cipher that the Nazis believed was impenetrable? The official records left out one crucial detail: the war was won not only on the ...

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER From Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, a sweeping, romantic compulsively readable historical saga about a Duke’s daughter—the perfect Victorian lady—who secretly moonlights as an amateur sleuth for high society’s inner circle. Victorian London was notorious...