The Spy Who Came in From the Circus

by Christopher Andrew

For almost half a century, Bertram Mills Circus was a household name throughout Britain among both children and adults and it’s Director, Cyril Bertram Mills, was one of the best-known and most influential names in the country’s entertainment business. But for forty years, Cyril Mills had also enjoyed a top-secret and wide-ranging career in British intelligence: obtaining the best aerial intelligence on Nazi rearmament for MI6 before the Second World War; becoming the first case officer to monitor the best double agent (Garbo) of the war after joining MI5; and working part-time during the Cold War ‘for MI5 or 6 or both without being paid a penny’. Remarkably, no word of Mills’s secret career appeared in public until he was over eighty. Nobody suspected that the glamorous world of pre-war circus entertainment had been an extraordinarily fitting rehearsal for the lethal arena of deception and surveillance. In this remarkable true story, Christopher Andrew, best-selling official biographer of MI5, brings to life one of the most surprising and fascinating tales of espionage ever told.

384 pages, Hardcover

First published March 14, 2024

About the author

Christopher Maurice Andrew, FRHistS is an Emeritus Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Cambridge with an interest in international relations and in particular the history of intelligence services. (military.wikia.org)

Reviews

[Jamad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Finally finished this book.

The only reason I read it is a friend knows Christopher Mills, the son of Cyril Mills. Christopher Mills sent copies of the book to all and sundry and my friend passed a copy to me.

The book, frankly, reads like a vanity project with Mills Snr “correctly guessing” this and “doing very important” that. I could forgive the book that if it wasn’t so unfocussed. The author seemed keen for prove “he knows his stuff.” If Mills Snr happened to be in Budapest and the author knows five interesting and unusual facts about Budapest, those facts will get shoe horned into the story - even if they are completely irrelevant to the story. As I said to my friend it is a bit like being lead across a field and being taken down every rabbit hole and mole hill en route. After a few dozen of these rabbit holes you start loosing the will to live, don’t know where you started from or where you are headed and can’t remember why you are in the ruddy field in the first place.

It is all made even more disappointing because it would seem Cyril Mills was a remarkable person who lead a remarkable life. Pity the book did not do the man justice.

[Vasil Kolev · Rating 3 out of 5]

meh