Regular readers of the blog may have noticed that I have been doing some book reviewing and features for the i newspaper in recent times. I linked to the reviews in a few blogposts, but the i now has quite a serious paywall in place, which means you can only see a very limited number of articles each month. I totally understand why they have done this - they need to survive - but am sorry if it means my readers cannot get to my Important Articles and enjoy my Important Words.
I'm listing some recent ones below: there is a link if you want to see them online, but I hope the photograph (clicked on and enlarged) may enable you to get the gist... As ever, I can only apologize for the low quality of the photography.
Madly Deeply: Diaries by Alan Rickman
published 2022
A Private Spy: Letters by John le Carre
published 2022
Author Colleen Hoover: feature, and review of It Starts With Us
published 2022
I'm so happy for you that you've had so many great reviews published, Moira. You're the perfect person for it, and you've got real insight. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteYou are very kind Margot. I really enjoy doing it.
DeleteThe revelations about David Cornwell's sex life are not the sort of posthumous applause most would seek! Nevertheless I am glad to see John le Carré’s Night Manager is back in fashion in India and his private letters et al in A Private Spy have entered the public domain. In his lifetime, every time John le Carré published a new thriller most of his contemporary authors deemed it yet another masterpiece but John le Carré doesn’t have a record of being enamoured by his fellow authors let alone journalists.
ReplyDeleteLe Carré, Ian Fleming and Len Deighton did meet one another from time to time but apparently their meetings ended in near nuclear arguments about who was best equipped to write realistic espionage novels. It's a shame all three focused on fiction but of course not one of them had first-hand experience of being a secret agent notwithstanding Fleming’s experiences in the Admiralty and le Carré’s in Five and Six until Kim Philby outed all le Carré’s agents operating in Europe. Of course, Philby and Oleg Gordievsky both knew Col Alan Pemberton CVO MBE aka Mac, Bill Fairclough’s true life MI6 handler in The Burlington Files which is a must read for all espionage cognoscenti.
Bill Fairclough, MI6 codename JJ, aka Edward Burlington, was the protagonist in The Burlington Files series of fact based spy novels and did have real life experience of being a secret agent albeit not focused so much on the USSR in the Cold War. Critics have likened Fairclough to a "posh or sophisticated Harry Palmer" which probably didn’t appeal to le Carré. We do know that Fairclough once contacted le Carré in 2014 to do a collaboration. Le Carré responded along the lines of "Why should I? I've got by so far without collaboration so why bother now?"
A realistic response from a famous expert in fiction who lost his MI6 job after being deceived by Philby! After all, Pemberton’s People in MI6 even included Roy Astley Richards OBE (Winston Churchill’s bodyguard) and an eccentric British Brigadier (Peter 'Scrubber' Stewart-Richardson) who was once refused permission to join the Afghan Mujahideen.
Thanks for you most interesting comments and additions to the story - fascinating details. I went and looked at your blog 'MI6 Anecdotes' https://mi6anecdotes.blogspot.com/ and do recommend it - I hope you will continue to add to it.
DeleteBlogger - which prints any old rubbish on the end of my blog - initially blocked your post as spam, I had to unlock it manually, and I think it was probably the mention of sex life in the first line! Or perhaps they are worried by your spying expertise....
Have a look at this article - it gives a different perspective on JleC than you normally get - see https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2022.10.31.php - he is arguably the best espionage genre writer in history but far from the perfect spy in other respects!
DeleteFascinating! bill fairclough obviously a character to grapple with. Great pictures of him too, you can see the shady charm.
DeleteShady charm is a great description. Lethal look might apply too!
ReplyDeleteYes it might - you'd believe anything of him!
DeleteWhat is amazing is his bio is bullet proof once you start researching it. He has the max number (30,000) of contacts (not mere followers) on LinkedIn and if you know how to you can check out a lot of them and there are hundreds and hundreds of senior law enforcement/regulatory officers, lawyers, judges, generals, ex-spooks, famous people, you name it! Also see the news on TheBurlingtonFiles website - it's in two places (see the FaireSansDire link too) - his pal Colonel Pemberton is a smiling assassin!
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness this is so weird. I am intrigued that he hasn't been on my radar before now. (Perhaps it's like being followed by Sherlock Holmes: "I saw nothing" "That is what you would expect to see if I was following you")
DeleteAs Pemberton said "The best spies don't know they are spies". We would add that "The best spies don't have monuments built after them." This is a fascinating article too - https://www.duncancampbell.org/menu/journalism/newstatesman/newstatesman-1980/salesman%20of%20the%20secret%20world.pdf - along with the stuff on him on TheBurlingtonFiles website news section - and much of this is still technically classified. Pemberton was an enigma and didn't like MI6's couch potatoes who failed to spot Philby and co even though they were obvious!
ReplyDeleteThat picture of Pemberton demonstrating the debugging equipment is a fine thing indeed. It all brings back that slightly paranoid air of the 1970s - and the two journalist Duncan Campbells, one a crime expert and the other security, IIRC.
DeleteMy favourite story about Philby (which may well be myth-making) was that he had on his desk a photograph he had taken of the asymmetrical Mt Ararat. People would say 'oh that photo is printed the wrong way round' and he would smile enigmatically - the point being that the photo had been taken from the Russian side, inside the USSR.
Yes indeed, I can see. What a crew! I like the one who highlighted cat burgling and silent killing on his CV
ReplyDeleteNot sure you would like Freddie Mace in real life though!
ReplyDelete