Betrayal
Betrayal was a routine business for George Blake
Kim Philby once remarked to the journalist Murray Sayle that ‘to betray, you must first belong. I never belonged’. Kim,…
A hazardous crossing: The Man Who Saw Everything, by Deborah Levy, reviewed
Serious readers and serious writers have a contract with each other,’ Deborah Levy once wrote. ‘We live through the same…
A blast from the past
If you had to choose one book that both typified spy fiction and celebrated what the genre was capable of…
A clash of loyalties
If someone was to lob the name Antigone about, many of us would smile and nod while trying to remember…
The infamous four
Most books about British traitors feature those who spied for Russia before and during the Cold War, making it easy…
Why George Bernard Shaw was an overrated babbler
When I was a kid, I was taught by a kindly old Jesuit whose youth had been beguiled by George…