Light and Shadow: Memoirs of a Spy's Son: Updated Edition

by Mark Colvin

Light and Shadow is the incredible story of a father waging a secret war against communism during the Cold War, while his son comes of age as a journalist and embarks on the risky career of a foreign correspondent. Mark covered local and global events for the ABC for more than four decades, reporting on wars, royal weddings and everything in between. In the midst of all this he discovered that his father was an MI6 spy.

Mark was witness to some of the most significant international events, including the Iranian hostage crisis, the buildup to the first Gulf War in Iraq and the direct aftermath of the shocking genocide in Rwanda. But when he contracted a life-threatening illness while working in the field, his world changed forever.

Mark Colvin's engrossing memoir takes you inside the coverage of major news events and navigates the complexity of his father's double life. Light and Shadow was published seven months before Mark's death, and he had the pleasure of seeing it become a bestseller. Award-winning ABC journalist Tony Jones pays tribute to his friend in an afterword.

522 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 30, 2017

Reviews

[Vaughan Patullock]

Mark Colvin the ABC journalist has led a remarkable life which in someway was facilitated by the work his father didn’t hence the Travel at an early age through various countries.
Given his father‘s work with the British SIS and MI6 was always secret. It took quite a while before the nature of that work dawned on Mark as he grew up.
As a young person heading up into his career and journalism, Mark was a voracious reader and clearly he came from a highly intellectual family. A really interesting read full of fascinating anecdotes and experiences.