The Whitehall Mandarin

Catesby #4

by Edward Wilson

British intelligence has a mole deep in the KGB. When that mole reports on a Soviet spy ring in London, MI6 gets worried. And when MI6 gets worried, they call Catesby. He is sent on a mole hunt that leads him through the seamy sex scandals of 1960s London to the jungles of Vietnam. The tectonic plates of world power are shifting.

Thrilling and deeply intelligent, 'The Whitehall Mandarin' reveals the US government's most deeply held secret - its investigation into the People's Republic of China, and its concurrent rise to world domination. It's a secret that Catesby may not live to share.

Genres: Fiction, Espionage, Thriller, Historical Fiction

363 pages, Hardcover

First published April 28, 2014

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Edward Wilson served in Vietnam as an officer in the 5th Special Forces. His decorations include the Bronze Star and Army Commendation Medal for Valor. Soon after leaving the army, Wilson became a permanent expatriate in the UK in 1974. He formally lost US nationality in 1986. Edward Wilson is a British citizen, but has also lived and worked in Germany and France.

Reviews

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good old-fashioned spy story in the manner of John le Carre, equally well-written, with superbly-drawn characters. The action ranges from 1957 to 1969, although the story actually begins in Malaya in 1948.

The main protagonist is Catesby, an agent of MI6, and the action passes through all the spy scandals of the sixties – a time when the upper-class elite ruled the western world, and in many cases, although not all, were beyond the law.

In 1957 Catesby is trailing Cauldwell, a CIA man who he knows has been turned by the Soviets and whom Catesby is capturing on film meeting a contact on a park bench. Catesby actually rather likes Cauldwell. and doesn't bear him any malice for defecting.

The action passes through the swinging sixties, taking place in London, Aldeburgh where various members of the artistic circle around Benjamin Britten are involved, and the Burgess and Maclean affair. MI6 know about the involvement of Anthony Blunt, but can't touch him because of his connections with royalty.

The person Catesby's chief really wants him to investigate is Lady Somers, the first woman boss at the Ministry of Defence. Apparently serenely impeccable, she has a daughter, Miranda, who is into drugs in a big way and is also an avowed Maoist. China has recently become a nuclear power, achieving this in a remarkably short time. The question is, how has this happened?

Catesby is sent on two very dangerous missions, first to Moscow, and then to Vietnam in the middle of the war. He survives – just, and in the end astonishing answers are provided, involving personal tragedy.

High calibre writing throughout, and an array of extraordinary characters. Not to be missed.

[Speesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

For an old Cold War spy (novel-reading) warrior like me, I really can’t resist books that come with recommendations like, “The thinking person’s John le Carré” and especially when it is described as an “old fashioned spy story.” Drawback is, many of the ones I go through with that their outside, can’t deliver on the inside.

With 'The Whitehall Mandarin’, Edward Wilson delivers. It’s a dramatic step up from the bright shiny, trashy, 'me-too’ thrillers one sees so (too) many of. There’s a depth of ambition, an understated confidence, an assurance and understanding of nuance, that makes it simply a delight to read. I was hooked (lined and sinkered) from the first page and kept spellbound to the last.

The story begins in 1957, though is still feeling echoes of the Second World War, 1948 and one Lady Penelope Somer’s time in Malaysia. She later becomes the first woman to be Permanent Under Secretary of State - effectively head - at the Ministry of Defence and is also the character around whom the story ultimately revolves. However, she’s not the story’s main figure, dare I say. That honour goes to William Catesby - he’s the one with most page-time here anyway. He shares his name with one of English history's most infamous traitors, Robert Catesby (I didn’t know that either), one of the ringleaders of the Gunpowder Plot of 5 November, 1605. That slight ancestral problem aside, our Catesby is an SIS officer who, as his colleagues - on both sides - frequently point out, is a working class lad from a nondescript East Anglian fishing village, with slight socialist tendencies that are now somewhat at odds with his chosen profession and especially the social circles in which he now operates. He is, as opposed to his not so illustrious predecessor, employed to track spies and traitors down, rather than recruit them. Although, hmmm…maybe…Anyway, as the story begins, we do indeed find him working to uncover a traitor. An American one. One the scientists and Naval officers he’s recruited, think is passing their information on to the Americans. Their information is being passed it on alright - but to the Russians. And that first double blind, is it a double - or triple bluff - should set you up nicely in the frame of mind to wrestle with the twists and tangles the plot will have you tied up in later. Catesby and the British SIS roll the American and his network up and pass him over to the US authorities, who bundle him off back ‘home’ to the States for further ‘processing.’ End of problem. Except it isn’t. It’s just the start. And becomes a problem on both sides of the Atlantic and all the way over to the far East.

It is a beguiling and entrancing tale, that weaves itself deftly in and out of the main events and political flash-points of the late ’50’s and ’60’s. From the fall-out after World War II, the start of the Cold War, the Bay of Pigs ‘debacle’ (depending on where you saw it from), to the Cuban missile crisis, the assassination of JFK, the Profumo affair, the Paris riots and on to the disaster that was the corporate sponsored mess of the Vietnam War. A war the biggest superpower in the world couldn’t hope to win, but didn’t dare admit it. Especially to itself. The story snakes and twists its way along the corridors of power and through seedy parties in stately homes full of people who should know better, but had enough influence that they really didn’t need to worry whether they needed to care, to end up amid the jungles of Vietnam and finally, the minefields of Whitehall. Phew! There is undoubtedly a lot going on in and a lot to take from this wonderful novel. Primarily, I thought anyway, how an individuals idealism has to be sacrificed to ‘realpolitik’ when national strategy becomes involved. The price paid by individuals caught up in the great game - those further down the pile, as well as those at the top. That ‘realpolitik', as the book says a couple of times, derives in part from the mantra; ‘our enemy’s enemy is our friend.” When expedient reality intrudes on political ideals - as many of the characters, from Catesby to Cauldwell, to Miranda to the USA and Vietnam, find out. Often at the cost of a ‘Faustian pact with Satan.’ (I knew studying Christopher Marlowe at school would come in handy one day!).

The book treats you like an adult, WITH an attention span, is one way I thought of it whilst under way. It’s not all laid on a plate for you and you will have to rewind a few times to make sure you got it right. OK, just me then...It manages to be both modern and timeless at the same time. By being set in the past, dealing with past events, he has a chance to concentrate on the fears and contradictions bound up in what surely was the ‘golden age’ of spying. Without doubt, spies operated on a higher intellectual plane back then (in the books, anyway). Look nowadays, at the ‘Bourne’ films and their “get me eyes on him people, now!” - shouts person in control centre, to some nerd just out of college employed to press buttons. In 'The Whitehall Mandarin', technology is dependant on having enough coins in your pocket for the phone booth, hoping the people in the flat opposite can’t lip read and remembering the appropriate colour of drawing pin to leave in a park bench. American intelligence agencies might be rushing headlong into the future, but thankfully, the British secret service still reminds me of the well-meaning likes of Monty Python: “Can you keep a secret?” “Yes!” “Well you’re in then!” And if there’s one thing the book’s final premis is based around, it’s the British aristocracy’s ability to do just that. Keep a secret.

’The Whitehall Mandarin’ certainly hits the sweet spot of style and substance, dead centre. Its messages come from the situations and mistakes of the past, but as those mistakes are still being made today, it is clearly still relevant, in the here and now. It all makes 'The Whitehall Mandarin' an absolutely captivating read and a delight of anticipation to return to after being away. It’s superbly well-paced, with a balanced structure that not only helps to increase the reading pleasure, but must have been a joy, not to mention fantastic fun, to plan and then write. The feeling of satisfaction when Edward realised it was all going to come together, is only to be jealous of. Yes, there are some weighty themes from some of recent history’s pivotal periods dealt with here, but the book always seems to remember to be an enjoyable experience. And it is unquestionably exciting, not to mention extremely tense, as you try and make sense of all the clues, the lies and half truths, the double or triple bluffs, the what-ifs, buts and maybes, that lead to an almost breathless rush to try and keep up with Catesby as he nears the point of unlocking the story’s final secrets. I’m thinking that this will be the book I’ll be measuring all my other ‘thrillers’ against in the future. And most will be found wanting.

For sheer fun on the reader’s side, the post-WWII, Cold War generation of spying will surely never be equalled and I admit I purred like the cat that got the cream throughout reading 'The Whitehall Mandarin.’ In contrast to many others, this is a modern spy novel that does deserve to be compared with the greats of yesteryear on its cover. You really shouldn't let a book of this calibre, this level of satisfying enjoyment, pass you by. Do whatever you can to get hold of a copy. Have sex with a teddy bear if you have to - better still, go to a bookshop and buy one, how old fashioned is that?

[KOMET · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished reading "THE WHITEHALL MANDARIN" this afternoon. What can I say? The ending was totally unexpected and yet, strangely appropriate given the deceit and treachery carried out by some of the main characters in the novel. One of whom was from the upper-crust of British society and occupied a very powerful position in the British government of that time. (We are talking about the mid to late 1960s.)

Again the author Edward Wilson mixed in both fiction and historical facts so well that it was sometimes hard for me to distinguish between what was historically true and what was fictional. Events like the Sino-Soviet split of the late 1950s, China's "Great Leap Forward" program - which led to the deaths of 35 million people between 1958 and 1963, the Cuban Missile Crisis (in which brief mention was made by the author of the role played in diffusing that crisis by the British MI-6 agent and polyglot William Catesby, one of the most interesting fictional spies I've ever read about who figures in most of Wilson's spy novels; he plays a major role in this novel as an agent who can be called upon by his bosses to carry out some of the toughest jobs in the spy world), a major sex/espionage scandal in the UK in the early 1960s that was kept under wraps - a direct parallel to the Profumo Scandal, China getting both the A-bomb and the hydrogen bomb in less time than it took for the U.S. and the Soviet Union to develop them), and the Vietnam War.

"THE WHITEHALL MANDARIN" is a novel that, once read, you'll want to return to again and again because it has so many fascinating layers that will make the reader want to re-examine what the Cold War was all about.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

A deeply and in fact frustratingly uneven book. Catesby is a British spy charged with defusing the myriad of spy rings operating in the UK. The author painstakingly recreates the 50s and 60s and even conjures up a plausible scenario in which all the paranoia can percolate nicely. Even better it's all well written with a couple of memorable scenes. Unfortunately all this plausibility gets sacrificed in one of the least realistic plot twists to grace a thriller for a very long time. A shame as could have been the thinking mans Ellroy with less of the macho bluster.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Whitehall Mandarin – A Classic Spy Novel

The Whitehall Mandarin by Edward Wilson is a brilliant old fashioned sprinkled with historical facts, spy story. This is a classic spy story in the mould of John Le Carre rather than Ian Fleming, multi layered rather than flash bang wallop. William Catesby the hero of our story may not be James Bond but he is as efficient as Bond’s Walther PPK.

William Catesby has risen from being a working class boy through Cambridge to becoming a ranking member of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligent Service or for us peasants better known as Mi6. His knowledge and experiences are all Cold War based having worked out of Berlin as a Cultural Attaché. He is brought back to London to help catch an American double agent and long time colleague in Jeffers Caudwell, a man of many contradictions as the story evolves.

Lady Somers is rich and powerful and more importantly she is the first female Permanent under Secretary to head up the Ministry of Defence. Catesby is sent to find out her back story and bury it so deep it will never surface again. What we get is a fantastic tour of London Sex Scandals of the 60s, crossed with the ineptness of the CIA the downfall of Ministers and daft wars. We see the intelligence agency at times acting like kids in the playground not wanting to share their toys even with their friends or simply not trusting each other.

He is sent to Vietnam to find Miranda, Lady Somers daughter to make things harder she is working with Viet Cong rather than on the American’s side. Somehow he has to get from the American side of Vietnam to the other side and the risk of death very high. He has to place his life in the hands of people you wouldn’t ask you to help you across the road.

What we see in this classic spy novel is a wonderfully woven story that uses some of the biggest events in the 1950s and 60s as a backdrop and Catesby has been an influence somewhere during the event. We get a journey in this book that takes in some of the hotspots of Cuba, Moscow and Vietnam back to the ‘sedate’ streets of London.

This is a wonderful novel that ticks all the boxes that has been written so well the descriptions give such evocative imagery. This is a fast paced story that keeps the reader guessing all the way to the end. The plot is brilliant, there is an excellent research to make sure that the historical facts are woven in to the story so you cannot see the joins. This is a well written powerful story that just makes a fantastic spy novel.

[Helena Halme · Rating 1 out of 5]

The start of this spy novel is pure pleasure - there's intrigue, there's grey, drizzly post-war London, there's covert espionage, KGB double, even triple agents, and an unknown mole in MI6.

But, about a third way through, this Cold War thriller stops being a novel and becomes a series of what I can only describe as Whitehall and CIA reports on the security situation in the world. The point of view wanders from Mao, Kennedy, to the hero of the novel, MI6 spy Catesby, and many characters besides.

Up to the end of the novel, the namesake of the book, The Whitehall Mandarin, aka Lady Somers, the first female Permanent under Secretary to head up the Ministry of Defence, remains in the background. Because of the title of the novel, you know she has to be a crucial part of the story, so in a way, the twist is already known to the reader from the onset. This knowledge becomes more and more frustrating because, until the very end, she does not seem to be part of the plot.

I don't often give books just a one star review, but this was a very disappointing read. Wilson's spy thriller showed much promise, but in the end lacked a clearly defined plot, had weak, one-dimensional characters and poor prose.

[Nooilforpacifists · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not that there were unexpected plot twists and turns--though there were. It's that Wilson throws the kitchen sink into this book. The overall story is terrific, yet there were so many pointless asides that didn't even rise to the level of a "McGuffin". Put differently, this book has sufficient plot for two books, which obscured what was a great storyline.

That being said, the book gets better and better, and the last 50 pages fly by.

[Gram · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another excellent spy story from Edward Wilson, which has his "hero" William Catesby tracking down the lies behind what turns out to be a highly unusual mystery - a mystery which also involves the bizarre sex practices of the British Establishment, touching on the Profumo Affair which shocked the British public in the early 1960's. One of the main characters is also involved in the honey traps set up be a blackmailing Soviet agent whose real masters are in Peking (Beijing). Catesby's investigation for the British Secret Service also includes a highly dangerous trip to South East Asia, casting a cynical eye over the drug trade promoted by the CIA during the Vietnam War and the ideological divide between the Kremlin and Maoist China, which - although they never publicly acknowledged it - greatly benefited the United States government. The 2 twists at the end of the story are almost fantastical, yet somehow believable. Wilson has a marvellous way of blending fiction with historical fact in all of his books and this one is no exception.

[Margaret Madden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review from Declan Madden...
William Catesby , SIS agent ,operates in a world where no one or nothing is as it seems to be . Tasked with discovering the source of leaked classified files concerning nuclear weaponry , he finds himself questioning who exactly he should be investigating .
Lady Penelope Somers is the first female to head up the Ministry of Defence . Wealthy and powerful but also with something to hide ,it falls to Catesby to find the secret and bury it .
The Whitehall Mandarin is set in the Cold War era spanning over a decade from the mid fifties to the late sixties and is a real classic spy story . The action moves from London to Moscow and eventually the conflict in Vietnam with various stops along the way .The main character ,William Catesby , works in a world of double-cross and counter-bluff where every person is suspected of spying, either for the Soviet KGB or the new rising power that is China . China’s rapid ascent to world super power poses serious questions to both the British secret services and the KGB as to how it acquired the ability to manufacture its own nuclear weaponry so quickly. A trip to Moscow for Catesby ends up leading to a search across South East Asia during the Vietnam war for the daughter of Lady Somers and the secret she has hidden for years.
Edward Wilson has written a cracker of a story here. He has set the story in the height of the Cold Ward crisis and used real time events as background to the events occurring in the novel .From the Bay of Pigs crisis through to the Profumo Scandal, Philby,Burgess and Maclean and the Vietnam War there is a definite sense of reality through the pages . The action takes place over a number of years and builds up to a dramatic ending with the writing well-paced .The character of Catesby is well developed and we see an outsider looking in at the peculiarities of the upper-class English who dominate officialdom and how their hedonism allows for them to be recruited by foreign espionage agents. It’s a clever story with plenty of twists and fans of classic spy novels by Le Carre will certainly enjoy this work.

[Jak60 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must admit that, when I approached this book, I suspended my expectations; I have read most of Edward Wilson's novels and I have learnt that he has dramatic highs and lows (among the former The Envoy and The Midnight Swimmer, The Darkling Spy was a terrible down and to some extent A Very British Ending also), so I was wondering which side this would fall...
Well, it fell on the low side.
The first third of the story is a complete waste of time, a huge, lengthy digression describing in painstaking details the getaway of an American defector, hijacking first a truck and then an airplane; this reads more like a bang-bang action novel than the spy story you were expecting. When you're done with this and other fragmented pieces of the story, you're almost at half the book and you wonder where this is going: besides the bang-band getaway part, you have bits of classic eastern bloc cold war mixed with pieces of Cuban revolution and of sino-soviet conflict, including a few glances into Mao's life. But I still wanted to believe it would all come together at some point, so I persisted, and I found myself suddenly thrown in the middle of the Vietnam war ("why the hell are we here now?" I found asking myself and I felt in good company for at that point the protagonist asks himself "why am I here?"; too bad that he could not answer the question).
The book is an ambitious project, but it is a long shot; the finale is intriguing but it has too many loose ends; none of the parts is actually bad but Wilson does struggle to keep the minimum cohesiveness of plot that a good novel requires.

[Stephen Selbst · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fine installment on the Catesby series by Edward Wilson. This book is somewhat different, far more of a psychological novel than a typical procedural thriller. True, there are stolen national security secrets here, but they're almost beside the point of the messy complex lives of Catesby's world. This book is more about personal betrayal and manipulation. As always, Wilson's books feature idiosyncratic, and thus believable, characters, who act from a mixture of motives, and not always wisely, which makes for a compelling read. Fun to read.

[Mark Ellis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book but not as much as I expected to. The story takes the spy hero Catesby through various well-researched part fiction/part fact Cold War and Vietnamese war episodes. There is some very interesting speculation about China's rapid development of their nuclear bomb. The book is well-written and part of a series which I would be happy to revisit. The problem I think is that the book is very episodic and lacks a compelling and persuasively cohesive overall plot.

[John Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me Wilson is as good as Le Carre. His plots are sophisticated and convoluted, but are written with a clarity that powers you through to the end. He also does characterisation that is on a par with Le Carre. Eagerly waiting for his next engrossing endeavour.

[Mavis Thresher · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are great books and I think it's wrong to describe them as "Le Carre Light". There are always geo-political references - consequently there is a learning experience of the political climate in which they are set. The Whitehall Mandarin is the latest book in the Catesby spy series. The Whitehall Mandarin of the title is Lady Somers, a single parent and the first woman civil servant to take charge of the Ministry of Defence. However, there’s a whiff of corruption surrounding this rich and powerful official, who may be the woman featured in the missing part of an erotic group photograph that’s been passed to Catesby. It could be just another sex scandal – or maybe she’s sided with the Russians. Meanwhile, her daughter, Miranda, is developing a drug habit and getting involved in radical politics. British intelligence has a deep penetration mole in the KGB. When that mole reports that a Soviet spy ring in London is no longer sending intelligence to Moscow, MI6 are worried. Catesby is sent on a mole hunt that leads him through the seamy sex scandals of 1960s London to the jungles of Vietnam.

[Sonya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book fascinating, particularly with the current international politics that is in the news. Not having read any of the previous Catesby novels, I had to concentrate on the details whilst reading to understand all of the intricacies of the storyline. Perhaps you might breeze through it more easily if you had read the previous novels. I still read it quite quickly because I was intrigued with the plot and wanted to find out what happened at the end. It was interesting that Wilson weaves historical events with his fictional storyline, and I found the book very thought provoking. I thought it was very well written and enjoyed the complexity of it. One particular sequence of events seemed quite ridiculous though, but apart from that, the threads of humour throughout balanced the story into the realm of a fictional, entertaining spy thriller, rather than a recount of historical events. I would definitely recommend this book if you enjoy complex novels and are interested in international political relationships.

[Huw Rhys · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a sort of Forrest Gump meets James Bond sort of book - with the most interesting bits of all the plots of the stories of both individuals condensed into 4oo pages.

On the one hand, it's the biography of a spy, as well as the arms length biography of another figure involved with espionage and all sorts of other often nefarious political activities, but it's also set across a number of decades where our main protagonist has often peripheral involvement with many of the major political characters and events of the late 20th century.

It's more than a little far fetched at times, but given that most of the major world events described really did happen, it's also through a different lens a perfectly realistic tale as well.

Even if you find some of the references and coincidences a little far fetched from time to time, it's still a very highly entertaining read. But if you can take these in your stride and thrive on them, it's even better!

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A similar style and milieu to The Envoy, this is excellent when examining the spycraft centred on London from 1957 through the 1960s although the Vietnam episode is a bit contrived and far too preachy while the final secret is hard to swallow. The protagonist is Catesby, caught up in East-West plus London-USA tensions that lead him to duplicity and ethical dilemmas in Moscow and various sites throughout Britain as a Chinese plot becomes critical. Strong on the intrigue and the Machiavellian nature of intelligence, less strong when the political bias becomes obtrusive.

[l'Inspecteur Malgracieux · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first 90 or so pages are very promising.

Then we get 50 pages of a spy who escapes from a high security facility (using a forgotten papercclip). Hijacks a Mack truck and then a DC 7. He ultimately obliges the pilot to fly them to Cuba where he meets... "A scruffy bearded figure wearing a beret and carrying a carbine [...] who looked at them with an impish smile".

Catesby is no George Smiley, Bernard Samson, Charley Muffin or even James Bond.
Edward Wilson is no le Carré, Deighton, Freemantle ....

[Jonathan Pedlar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well crafted, well researched and yes, a gripping tale.

A fitting novel in Mr Wilson's series. I only have one small (but important) complaint. On p255, as I am sure he has been told many times by others, fission and fusion are confused. Fission is the splitting of unstable atoms, such as uranium or plutonium releasing energy - the atom bomb, which came first. Fusion refers to the fusion of hydrogen atoms to make helium, requiring an atomic explosion to compress the hydrogen sufficiently, and produces much more energy.

[Michael Shaoul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just too long and complicated

What started as a stimulating series of historical spy stories has deteriorated into this rambling shaggy dog story. The writing is still good enough but the plot meanders on and the final "pay off" is simply silly. Somewhere in this mess is a good story struggling to get out but the final product tries the reader's patience.

[Andy Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t find this an easy read, you need to really concentrate on the characters and plot developments over a 10-11 year period. But it was rewarding and reached a satisfying conclusion. It also raises interesting speculations about the startling progress made by China in developing nuclear weapons, and shows some of the horrors of the Vietnamese war.

[Alexander Page · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yep.

Kinda what it was like although we didn’t recognise Wilson as left wing. We did though understand he kept us out of Vietnam. And then he went potty as if he had been fed LSD in vast quantities for a longtime. And really the establishment [tories] have been in ever since and that includes Blair.

[Charles Levenstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Endless intrigue

This tale was fascinating but went on and on. It must have been great fun to research and write — more than to read. Nevertheless, I did read it from beginning to end and enjoyed the far fetched. Conspiracies. Well worth the t8me if you have it to spare.

[Gerard Hogan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant spy drama set in post war Britain.
Wilson tantalises by dropping oblique references to real events and people which are fun to try and work out.
One of the best of his Catesby series so far.

[Ben Ring · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went into this thinking it would be fantastic, based on all the glowing reviews. Unfortunately, the plot was a little disjointed and felt kind of all over the place. The book starts out really strong, but I felt like I lost the plot about halfway through.

[Lucinda Clarke · Rating 3 out of 5]

A CAPTIVATING SPY THRILLER?
Not so much. I found it rather long-winded and with so many inexplicable twists and turns I lost track in several places. Also a little unrealistic with one man going deep into the jungle and then returning alive? Sadly not impressed.

[Darius Ostrowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find the Catesby books more complex than the usual spy novels, which I enjoy.

[Prof. Dr. Th. Lundmark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting and enjoyable reading

I think that this is the best in the series. Very well researched and written. Lots of detail and memorable turns of phrase.

[AVid_D · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have loved the Catesby series up to here, but this one was less engrossing. I enjoyed it, but it seemed a bit messy, and less believable than the previous books.

[Meredith · Rating 4 out of 5]

All the qualities we love about the English: intelligence, wit, complexity. A historically based thriller. An excellent writer.