My current reading is this 1990 title, by the late espionage writer Richard Deacon.
I am only 60 pages in, but it does seem this is an apologia for MI5 and a rebuttal of the view that the Service's Director General from 1956-65, Roger Hollis, was a Soviet spy. How else to take a book which claims one of Hollis' greatest rivals and chief inquisitor, Peter Wright "served in MI5 for a relatively short period" (p.6) Wright actually served for 21 years, being recruited as the organisation's principal scientist, going on to specialise in counter-intelligence.
One joy of buying and reading second hand books from thirty plus years ago, is that they so often come with news cuttings and other bits and pieces tucked away inside them. In this case it is not a news clipping or an obituary, but a series of comments written on the previous owners bookmark.
No one using a kindle will ever know the pleasures of such random discoveries. May they be preserved for ever!
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