Michael Smith Gollancz, London,1996, £20 This is a curious and rather pointless book. In short chapters Smith attempts potted histories of MI5, SIS, signals and military intelligence. These are quite well done, but covering half a century in 20 pages, say, the chapters are barely more than sketches. (The Information Research Department gets a page!) … Read more
How MI6 and the CIA were involved in the death of Princess Diana Jon King and John Beveridge New York: SPI Books, 2002, £18.95 In the five years since the Paris car crash that killed Princess Diana, Dodi Fayed, and Henri Paul, interest in Diana herself may have waned, (1) but the circumstances surrounding her … Read more
[PDF file]: The Shadow Man: At the Heart of the Cambridge Spy Circle Geoff Andrews London: I B Tauris, 2016, £20, h/b This is a revelatory book that, in its own quiet, understated way, is likely to send shock waves through the historiography of British Communism. Geoff Andrews is the author of the disappointing last volume […]
[PDF file]: A Spy Alone Charles Beaumont London: Canelo, 2023, £9.99 (p/b) Robin Ramsay This is only the second novel I have reviewed in Lobster.1 The cover and the author blurb tells us that author Beaumont is a ‘former MI6 operative’. ‘Operative’? Why not ‘officer’? The author tells me the word was chosen by the publisher. […]
[…] regularly in specialized investigative publications like Covert Action Information Bulletin, Bulletin d’Information sur Intervention Clandestine (France), Intelligence/Parapolitics (now Intelligence Newsletter) (France), Lobster (UK), National Reporter (formerly Counter spy) (US, recently defunct), The Public Eye, Celsius (formerly Article 31) (Belgium), Searchlight (UK) and the now defunct State Research Bulletin (UK). A great deal more is […]
The clandestine world of surveillance, spying and intelligence from ancient times to the post 9/11 world Ernest Volkman London: Carlton, 2007, h/b, £20 This is a lavishly and creatively illustrated, large format, (i.e. slightly bigger than A4) glossy paper, coffee-table book on the history of espionage. A former journalist with Newsday, and author of … Read more
[…] opening of the KGB archives and the testimony of Oleg Gordievsky, you might be forgiven for thinking that the question, Was MI5 Director-General Roger Hollis a Soviet spy? had been answered conclusively and resoundingly ‘No’. You would be wrong – or so says the doyen of British espionage writers, Chapman Pincher. In a piece […]
[…] may breach European privacy legislation and the European Commission is investigating four possible breaches of European law (Europe to Investigate Legality of RIP, 27/10/00, www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/14288.html and Net Spy Act may be Illegal, Independent 5/11/00, www.independent.co.uk/news/Digital/Update/ 2000-11/spy051100.shtml) A public consultation on the draft Codes of Practice (on Interception of Communications, Covert Surveillance and the use […]
