A Spy by Nature

Alec Milius #1

by Charles Cumming

Alec Milius, a recent graduate of the London School of Economics, is young, smart, and a bit of a slacker, stuck in a shady job and suffering from a lack of direction. So, when an old family friend offers to put him up for a job in British Intelligence, Alec begins the rigorous selection process for SIS or MI6. Though he doesn't officially make the cut, he is funneled into a prime position at a British oil company with interests in the Caspian Sea. He is directed to befriend Fortner Grice and Katharine Simms, two charismatic employees of Andromeda, a rival American oil firm. Lured into the murky world of industrial espionage, Milius finds himself trapped in a life of secrets and lies, manipulated by MI6 and the CIA, and confronted by the reality of a ruthless business environment in which priceless information can come at the cost of human life. Compellingly told, utterly authentic, and heart-racingly tense, A Spy By Nature will grip you until the very last page.

Genres: Fiction, Espionage, Thriller, Crime, Suspense, Mystery, Mystery Thriller

464 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Charles Cumming is British writer of spy fiction. His international bestselling thrillers including A Spy By Nature, The Spanish Game, Typhoon and The Trinity Six. A former British Secret Service recruit, he is a contributing editor of The Week magazine and lives in London.

http://www.charlescumming.co.uk/

Reviews

[Bill · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Dumbest Spy in the World

Cummings, C. (2001). A Spy By Nature. New York: St. Martins

The protagonist is a recent college graduate in London who works in a dead end telemarketing job and feels his life drifting. He applies for a job as a spy and apparently does well in the application, but is ultimately rejected without explanation. Or is he really? A retired MI5 acquaintance mysteriously invites him to join his international oil firm as a clerk, with a covert mission to spy on a competing American oil company. Young Alec accepts the job despite the lousy pay, long hours and probationary status, and sets about charming the socks off a couple of Americans in London who represent the American oil firm. He manages to establish a solid friendship, skillfully presenting himself as disgruntled, so that, predictably, the Americans turn him and soon he is passing information about the London oil company to them. All this takes at least 200 pages and is skillfully written. Then Alec acts stupidly, completely and unbelievably out of character, the dumbest spy in the world, and his cover is blown, his career ended. The end.

The story is very plodding and predictable, with essentially no dramatic tension, because there is nothing significant at stake, and because there is no situational drama baked into the cake. What keeps the book from screaming boredom is good writing in thoughtful and keenly observed, if mundane, scenes.

[Mickey Hoffman · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book after two of the author's other books. Had I read this one first, I wouldn't have read another. It's not often I get to the end of a book and want to scream, but this book has an ending that makes no sense to me. In addition, the main character is completely unlikeable.

[Penney]

One of the worst endings since Russo's 'Empire Falls'. The protagonist is unlikable, inconsistent and quite frankly an egotistical pansy, if that combo can exist. There are a few moments of articulate insight into young career angst, but not enough to save this or sell it.

[Mal Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Spy by Nature, Charles Cumming’s first novel, is the semi-autobiographical precursor several subsequent espionage stories that have caught the attention of reviewers and the reading public alike. The Trinity Six, the most recent, was a deft and ingenious reimagining of the familiar story of the five aristocratic Cambridge graduates whose greatest fame came when they defected to the Soviet Union after many years of undercover work in Britain.

In A Spy by Nature, Cumming tells a version of his own story as a recruit to the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). His protagonist, Alec Milius, is a 24-year-old underperformer in London who devotes three months to testing and interviews preparatory to joining MI6, only to be rejected. The consolation prize is a job as a “support agent,” a species of contractor, who is placed in a British oil company with the assignment to infiltrate its American competitor and feed it disinformation.

As Alec’s story unfolds, he finds himself more and more deeply enmeshed in a web of distrust and betrayal that brings out the worst in him — and generates tragic consequences. Cumming’s portrayal of his alter ego is utterly convincing, and the story brings to light an increasingly important aspect of latter-day espionage in the post-Cold War Era: industrial espionage.

A Spy by Nature is an entirely worthy antecedent of Cumming’s later, more fully realized spy stories.

(From www.malwarwickonbooks.com)

[Christopher Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a bit of a mixed bag. I thought it started really well with the life of 24 year old Alec Milius described in detail in London. Working for a small company, which is involved in close to fraud in attempting to get East European companies to invest in advertising through them, in the West.

An attempt to join MI6 and the test and interview process was also well done and of interest. After this I thought the book became more difficult to like. Alec joins a small British oil company involved in the Caspian region and through a friend of his mother, is used as an MI5 agent (probably trainee agent) to entice two American CIA agents to recruit him to supply company information (oil etc)

Became a little tedious at times and certainly long-winded. Perked up a little at the end but the story was left a little open-possibly for the second volume but not sure.

[Nick Wade · Rating 1 out of 5]

Cumming has done such a good job creating such a dislikable charector that it ruins the entire book. This was a struggle to read with no real payoff at the end.

[Jim Clennett · Rating 1 out of 5]

I worry that sometimes I'm reading a completely different book to the one that a lot of other people have reviewed...

If this book is, as the cover promises, "taughtly written, cleverly plotted" then either the contents of my copy had been cunningly replaced by a windy, over-long and largely drama-free doppelganger or my understanding of "taught" and "clever" needs some serious work! Aside from the fact that the leading character is so unremittingly unlikeable that I ended up sincerely hoping the CIA would put him and his readers out of their misery (sadly the open ending denies us this wonderful reward), the basic premise of a spy story is that it will reward us with action, tension, or ideally both - A Spy by Nature signally fails on both counts..!

Other reviewers have suggested that this is something of a "poor relation" to Mr Cumming's later books. This may indeed be so, but I for one won't be troubling to find out since something twice as good would still rate somewhere in the region of mildly disappointing.

[Michael Layne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had mixed feelings about this novel as I found it difficult to read quickly. I just couldn't get into a rhythm with the story. The characters were OK. The plot was OK. But the language was..something. Eloquent? Beautiful? Not sure what the correct word is to describe it. After a few chapters, after getting over the fact that I couldn't rip through the book, I started to become very impressed that the language was ensnaring me, not allowing me to bludgeon through it. I started looking forward to reading my chapter-a-night. And, I was sad when the book was over. I wasn't sad about losing touch with the characters or the plot, but I was mildly depressed that I wouldn't be able to read Cumming's sentences anymore. I recommend this novel for a solid but not very exciting plot and cast of characters and for its well-written prose.

[Alecia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the 2nd novel I have read by Charles Cumming, and his first novel. I had read The Trinity Six (his latest) and enjoyed it. Although spy novels are not my "thing", I find Cumming's writing style very accessible and engaging. In A Spy by Nature, the plotting is not as good as his latest novel, so he has clearly evolved from then to now. But reading this shows me what a good writer he was and the raw material is there to turn him into the even better one he is today. I would read him again.

[Courtney · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF - this was a painful read. So much so that I did not finish. Please do not read.

[Cecilia Bigelow · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bland spy novel with no action. Just the main character having constant anxiety about being caught after joining the British secret service.

The cover was what grabbed my attention in the first place. Great cover art, but terrible story.

I would say that the story is truthful in reality about describing how being part of the CIA or M15 is more so about sitting at a desk and filling out paperwork than all the action you see in movies.

The writing style is the best thing about this book. Very descriptive and kept my attention the whole way through.

The beginning was amusing with the main character and others having to sit at desks like back in school and taking tests in order to be qualified to join M15 and be a spy. Funny also how the main character, Alec also called one of the other M15 runners a Hobbit, cause he was chubby and hobbits do eat 6 meals a day (2 breakfast, 2 lunch, 2 dinner)!

Everything else in this book is a bit confusing and the ending is terrible. Don’t think I’m going to be reading the sequel.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Milius is stuck in a dead end job. He had been hoping for better things having graduated from the London School of Economics, but is getting bored in a dead end job. When a family friend offers him the opportunity to work for MI6 he jumps at the chance and starts the arduous selection process. He is not quite up to the standard, so does not make it through, so the same family friend finds him another position with a British oil company who have extensive interests in the Caspian. It is suggested, that whilst he is there, perhaps he can make friends with two people, Fortner Grice and Katharine Simmat, who work at a rival oil firm called Andromeda. The implication is that if he succeeds at this spot of industrial espionage, then he might have a second chance at SIS. This cut throat business is where Milius finds himself a pawn in the smoke and mirrored world of spies as the so called friendly powers play for strategic interests in the region, and even lives are considered worthless.

This is the second of Cumming’s books that I have read. It is a gripping thriller, with a plausible plot and several twists. Milius, the main character, has some major character flaws, to add to the plot, and his vanity means that he likes the allure of spying but fails to excel at it. It was quite enjoyable overall, the writing is fast paced and he successfully manages to make you not have any affinity with the main character. However, it wasn’t quite as good as Trinity Six, which was superb. It does make you think about who is your enemy though.

[Mark Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a depressing story about an unappealing protagonist living a mundane existence who takes part in a inconsequential corporate espionage operation run by an intelligence organization that is at best semi-competent. Somehow, though, innocent people’s lives end up hanging in the balance. It’s not so much a spy thriller a la Ian Fleming, Tom Clancy, or Robert Ludlum as it is a critique of espionage, government incompetence, and, for that matter, the pointless efforts of flawed humans who, despite all evidence to the contrary, think they can make a positive impact on the world. There’s a very English “Let’s all just try to muddle along in spite of it all, shall we?” tone to the book.

If you’re into that sort of thing, though, it’s a well-crafted example of the genre. In contrast to the main characters in most American thrillers, Cumming’s main character (Alec) is no hero. He’s a small-time con-man with an inferiority complex who falls into espionage by accident. He proceeds to make various mistakes in handling his assigned task. The story is suspenseful and plausible, and as much focused on Alec’s personal relationships as it is on the mission to which he has been assigned. The ending of the book is a something of a cliff-hanger, so it would be unwise to commit to this book without also planning to the second book in the series.

[Anita · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an ironic tale which asks the reader to believe a purportedly honest account by a perpetual liar. Alec Milius recounts his experience as a young man compelled to lie who ultimately ends up in an occupation that makes the most of this natural inclination. He’s bright but unformed, and while spying for a British oil company he sinks into a quagmire where everyone’s a liar and nothing is quite what he expected. Due to his naivete, he finds himself in more and more precarious circumstances until all that’s left is a jenga tower of potential disaster. Assumptions that contribute to his cockiness early on are slowly wittled away in a murky world compounded by paranoia. What I really like about Alec Milius, though, is the way he takes us along like a confidant as he not only navigates the layers of his own personal and corporate intrigue, but also shares many acute social observations about his fellow humans. Cumming can turn a phrase and create poetic similes which contribute to his appeal as an author. This is a book that I would recommend for people who enjoy a well-written story with psychological edge – it’s as much about Alec’s struggle to come to terms with himself as it is about his outer reckoning with the pitfalls of professional espionage.

[Nickitopster · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, really I did, because certain reviews had mentioned a similarity with books by Le Carré which I enjoy. But unfortunately, I found it tedious and just plain boring. There's no need to repeat the general plot as others have already done so. And, while I respect others' opinions, I must take issue with those who have referred to this as a mystery. Unless you've never read a spy book before, there's only one way this story was going, (Spoiler Alert) except perhaps for the death of the girl. A giant billboard couldn't have given it away any more clearly!

I may give another of his books a try because, as I said, I really wanted to like this author but he's got a big hole to dig out of. Sorry...

[Rik · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't say there was anything wrong with this book, it was just very slow. I didn't engauge with the main character, though I rather liked that he was of normal ability (not super talented), and clearly quite deluded about his own nature, not seeing himself as others do. I guess the slow plot development may be realistic, but it made it less than thrilling.

[M.K. South · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the writing, but the story was just too draggy and ... it just left me cold.

[Dimitrije Vojnov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charles Cumming je britanski pisac špijunaca koji u poslednje vreme prelazi sve više u scenaristiku. Njegovo najbitnije literarno delo je serijal romana o Alecu Miliusu i zanimljivo je odakle cela stvar kreće.

Naime, A SPY BY NATURE je roman o Alecu Miliusu, mladom alumnusu LSE koji radi u nekom prevarantskom privrednom pregledu koji se fiktivno štampa i navlači naivne istočnoevropske privrednike da plaćaju reklamni prostor. Iz te egzistencije pokušava da izađe konkurišući za posao u tajnoj službi koji ne dobija, ali ipak dobija priliku da odradi jedan zadatak u svetu korporativne špijunaže.

Cumming ima iskustvo konkurisanja za tajnu službu, ali u samom romanu se to ne eksploatiše previše i snaga romana se ne iscrpljuje u tome. Da, roman svakako pokušava da bude lecarreovski, dakle da crossoveruje mimo ortodoksnih fanova žanra ka čitaocima visoke književnosti.

Kakvi smo mi čitaoci, takav nam je i Cumming le Carre. Situacije su mu slično le Carreu dramske, ali nisu tako dekadentne i zamršene, što je naravno generacijska stvar. Isto tako, mogućnosti koje nudi proza ne koristi do maksimuma, što pokazuje da mu je dramaturgija dosta bazirana na tehnikama sa filma i televizije. Međutim, uprkos jednostavnosti, pokušaj je ipak dobar.

Neće Cumminga niko pomešati sa le Carreom ali će moći da u njemu pronađe predah dok prekopava po bibliografiji ovog klasika tražeći nešto što nije pročitao.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Charles Cumming's writing - The Trinity Six was a great spy novel - but this one, mainly about industrial espionage, was a little unsettling because I didn't like the main character, and he's supposed to be unlikable because of the nature of his life as a spy. Introverted, overly self-confident, and above all a liar - he has a lot of the qualities that make a spy successful, but which isolate him from friends, family, and colleagues, and ultimately put them in danger.
The denouement is a real kicker and readers will be left feeling that the startling conclusion is wide-open for a sequel, which Cumming provided with the second Alec Milius book, The Spanish Game.

[Jamie Bowen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Alec Milius is a bright lad, when an old friend of his father offers him an opportunity to work for MI6, he slowly welcomes the idea of becoming a spy. When he’s approached to take on a job with an oil firm to play a part in some industrial espionage, his life becomes one big lie and he has no idea of the potential consequences for him or his friends. I love spy stories, but this was disappointing, the set up was quite good, it goes through his training in spy school, to the deception on his assignment with the oil company, but like many others the ending was rather disappointing. To set something up quite well and then not really have an ending that does the boom justice. The character of Alec is also not one that you easily endear to.

[Paul Holden · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s taken me a while to figure out how I feel about this. It started strongly, describing the interview process for the Secret Service, but then slowed down in the second third. I would’ve given it four stars for that, except the slower part was necessary in order to give the ending more of an emotional whallop. The last third really picked up, helped by a good twist, so I think overall it deserves full marks.

[Kelly Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book started out slow, and was a little hard to get into. Once I got halfway through, it was hard to put down. Cummings does an amazing job of telling the story with twists and turns and portraying the spy aspect. I want to read the second book already!

[Jasper · Rating 4 out of 5]

This started off a bit slow, but when things picked up, it felt like a movie. There are some things the main character said that spoke to me. Like, why is a book about spies and espionage suddenly attacking me.

[Mr Jeffery · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent read from this writer, who constantly delivers.

If you like py books, try this.

[Gavin H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gets going & becomes compelling

[Gareth Davies · Rating 2 out of 5]

A poor thriller with an unlikeable main character. Not Cummins best work.

[Don Teale · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was OK, I preferred A Foreign Country, the lead character is not very likable, but he is a spy and they seem to be a despicable breed.
It’s a bit of a micro situation and challenges motives, and unlike many of the reviews I quite liked the end, but it arrived not a minute too soon.
I don’t think I will bother with the sequel.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel follows Alec Milius, a young man of 24, through a period of three years. The book is divided into three parts, labelled simply 1995, 1996 and 1997. When we first meet Alec, he is stuck in a dead-end job, has lost his long-time girlfriend and is filled with a burning desire to make something more of himself. His fortunes seeem to take a complete 180 when an acquaintance of his mother recommends him for a job with MI6 or SIS, the Secret Intelligence Service. And this is the true beginning of the story.

I found that overall, this was a good book. Part 1 (1995) was very slow getting started, and at times a bit tedious to read. Once into the second part, the plot picked up and the characters became more interesting, and then everything began to move along at a better pace. Part 3 was used very effectively as both a climax, and to appropriately tie all the loose pieces together. At the beginning of both part two and three, there is a sense that important information has been left out, but again, the end of part three is used in the best way possible to make everything clear.

[Dan Tynan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was my third Charles Cumming book, but the first he wrote -- which is probably why I was disappointed with it. I'd read (ok, listened to) Typhoon, which was terrific. Then the Trinity 6, which was good, but not as good as Typhoon. So going back to his first book is like watching a great cyclist back when he was still using training wheels.

The book is dull, frankly. It's very much a straight forward narrative with few twists and turns, and really, it's mostly a series of somewhat tedious conversations. A lot of what happens to drive the plot isn't really plausible, to my ear anyway. He learned how to do actual research and mix up the pacing and juggle multiple story lines by the time he got to Typhoon.

If he continues in that vein, he could very much supplant Le Carre as the master of the British spy genre. So only read this one if you've never read anything else of his or you're determined to read it all.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

ok, so not all spies are James Bond! This we find out very soon where it concerns Alec Milius "The Spy" & the lead in via testing & processing is a grand way for the genre to evolve. The psychology of constant deceit, duplicitous & betrayal & it's oppressiveness on his somewhat flawed character makes for a decent read behind the evolving plot & for that side of it it's a 4 star read, however....... the last few chapters are somewhat of a disappointment as it all gets a tad ridiculous or perhaps that's a sign of Alec's immaturity & the fact he's hopelessly out of his depth after being manipulated from the get-go but there again thats the hub of this story so i'll go with a 3 star after hovering weather to jus finish it as a one off read, maybe I'll continue with Alec Milius as it's mostly a good read.