My Family And Other Spies

by Alistair Wood

Pre-order this unforgettable memoir of life in a family like no other, and their extraordinary, eccentric part in half a century of espionage . . .

Genres: Nonfiction, Espionage, World War II, Memoir

367 pages, Paperback

First published May 8, 2025

Reviews

[Lynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intriguing true story about a family who all worked for SIS. Told by his son,this is the story of the enigmatic John Wood who worked for the SIS and UN from the 1930s through to reasonably recent times. John Wood was a polyglot, a radio expert, a weirdly detached womaniser a Sufi and a consummate liar. Fascinating story moving from WW2 South America, post WW2 Berlin and Austria to Vietnam to Cambodia to many African hotspots….. John Wood was and will probably always be an enigma? This is a very dense book and needs careful reading. Scarcely believable.

[Ann Broad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary story. Can it really be true? Maybe the son is more like the father after all !

[Becky B · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author relates the life of his duplicitous father JBW who was born in England, lived all over the world as a child, claimed to be Norwegian while at Cambridge, was a Sufi disciple, was recruited to work with SIS in the Americas and then with MI6 in Europe post-WWII before being kicked out on suspicions of being a double agent and moving into a life of UN roles all over the globe.

The very first couple of chapters of this were the best part of the book with the author relating his own unusual upbringing on a military base in England with his mother working for MI6 and father only making brief appearances in his life. The rest of the book follows his father around the globe in his string of unusual lies (usually about his citizenship, but also about his relationship with his children...claiming they were nieces or sons of friends), inability to keep a steady relationship, his surprising relationship with Sufi movements in Europe and the Americas, and how his untrustworthiness came back to haunt him in several aspects. You would think a bio of a spy and borderline conman would be fascinating, but I had to work to get through this and used it mostly as something to put me to sleep at night because...well, it was boring. I think it was the manner in which this was presented as telling instead of showing, but I think part of that is due to the fact that the author had minimal facts to go on and was just piecing his father's life together from the little bits of factual information he did have to go on. Which was also just plain sad.

Notes on content:
Language: I don't remember any.
Sexual content: A couple mentions that couples engaged in activity. Nothing explicit, but some oversharing involved that would earn at least a PG-13.
Violence: Deaths in wars and covert actions that resulted in injuries are related. A fatal car crash is related. Cancer and old age are listed as causes of deaths for some of the people introduced.
Ethnic diversity: JBW worked all over the world so there are people from every continent but Antarctica introduced.
LGBTQ+ content: I believe there was one person mentioned who was an acquaintance and was gay.
Other: JBW cheated on several wives and girlfriends and abandoned more than one family with children.

[Davidg · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable book but that leaves you unsatisfied. There is nothing that the author can currently do about this, unless certain files are released which reveal more of the story. Both of Alistair Wood’s parents worked for The Office, particularly after WWII. The book is primarily concerned with his father, for whom lying is an habitual way of life. The book begins with his father saying that he and his eldest son are just popping up to the shops for some bread, and then disappearing with the car and his and his wife’s passports - so she can’t follow. Eventually, she tracks them down to Canada and is reunited with her son. Alistair is too young to remember any of this, but grows up with the stories of the absent father, who was removed from The Office under a cloud, but we never quite work out why. Was he a Soviet double agent, or was he just caught up in the aftermath of his former boss, Kim Philby? Unless files are released in either London or Moscow, we will never know.

There are lots of side views of the world of post-war espionage. The former senior official, and family friend, described as the “most significant agent of the post-war period”, who dies without a notice, an obituary or a funeral, taking his secrets to the grave - if he had one. The sons of a former discredited spy, living on the SIS training camp, after their mother remarried.

And above all, there is the absent father, who tells his future wives that his sons from and his second marriage and daughters from the third, are not his but his brothers. He never had a brother. At various times, he claims to be Norwegian or Canadian. Becoming one of the first to ever be sacked from a UN post, only to be offered a job by another branch of that organisation.

A wild ride that isn’t as exciting as it could be, simply because there have to be a lot of ‘could have’s’ and ‘might be’s’.

[Robert Ronsson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prompted by a 'Friend's' review on GR, I ordered this from the library thinking it would be right up my street. The story is but sadly not written this way.
I'm writing this while Raynor Winn's The Salt Path is much in the news. Say what you like about that book but it was never 'meh'. She described what could have been the repetitive diary of a trek in lively and colourful language. In My Family and Other Spies Alistair Wood does the opposite. He charts a colourful life using such uninspiring prose, excepting perhaps his attempts at humour, that it reads like a report from the Ministry of Ag. and Fish.
Alistair Wood's father led an extraordinary life in espionage - he was a contemporary of Kim Philby. He was a Norwegian-born, international religious leader – or was he? He kept secret from his third wife the existence of two previous wives and four children, two of whom he introduced to her as his nieces. His whole life was one of deception. In the hands of John le Carré, for instance, it would have made a gripping read. Sadly, Alistair Wood's dry approach jars with his subject matter so much that the result is merely 'okay'.

[Fairgo · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF - I managed 87% of the audiobook (David Rentoul's narration is outstanding) before I could persevere no longer. It should be a non-fiction thriller as Wood Jnr finds out about Wood Snr's many lives and lies in the espionage world and in his private life. But it's just a long, and eventually tedious, recounting of women bedded, deceived and abandoned (sometimes including children), globe-trotting to almost every country worth visiting and heroic learning enough foreign languages to rate him a top polyglot. What struck me, as boredom increased, was the lack of emotion related to any of the events. Wood Jnr doesn't mention great boyhood curiosity or sadness with respect to his absent father; in all the partings there's nothing to suggest that anyone was heartbroken or massively disappointed; and stories of lucky escapes don't elicit any sense of fear or relief at a close shave . Acceptance that he was a weird chap with secrets seemed to be the strongest memory most people had of him. It's a odd book - as though the promise of a full-colour thrilling movie turned out to be a series of black and white photos.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this a great read, and a quite fascinating one. A remarkable story of a remarkable – and enigmatic – man. Part coming-of-age tale, part family saga, part thriller, part insight into spycraft and the workings of the secret service, all written in an accessible and eminently readable style with some nicely understated comedic touches and the odd one-liner. It all amounts to a truly compelling memoir by John Wood’s son, who has delved into his father’s life with painstaking and often tricky research. And what a life it was, one which would be totally implausible in a novel but which happens to be all true. The author clearly and vividly depicts the world of espionage his father was involved in, his secrets and evasions and decidedly casual relationship to the truth. If his father was absent for much of his life, Alistair Wood doesn’t seem to hold a grudge, and remains non-judgmental throughout, which makes the book even more readable. Highly recommended.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sui Generis

An extraordinary account of the author’s eccentric progenitor and his wild life that reads like a thriller. Was JBW neurodivergent? Did he have a personality disorder? His son paints a portrait of a charmiung rogue, a man with a unique facility for absorbing foreign languages who “re-invented” himself, obfuscated or lied to be whomever he chose to be in that moment. Was he British? Norwegian? Canadian? A patriot or traitor? Once employed by British Intelligence he was suspected to have been a Soviet agent. He blagged his way into jobs in Academia and the United Nations. JBW was an enigma with wanderlust who serially used women, fathered children he neither parented nor supported financially, kept his own money very close to his chest, embraced Sufi Islamic philosophy yet on his deathbed converted to Catholicism. Yet he charmed many and, particularly in the second half of his life, did ‘good works’.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author's mother and father were both spies. They met while working in Berlin, at the start of the cold war. He had an unconventional upbringing, spending some years living in a training camp for the special services, where his mother was working. Father was absent: a gifted linguist but a devious and secretive man with several other families, someone who was incapable of giving a straight answer to direct question and who was fired -- and rehired -- by the special services several times.

On one level it's an extraordinary story, often funny, and it's quite an achievement on the author's part to have traced so elusive a character though so many reinventions in so many countries. But it also felt slightly impersonal: I wanted more of the author's research journey and emerging reactions to what he found out. And also - quite impossible, obviously - some form of official perspective or commentary.

[Dominika · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating peek into the globe-spanning world of espionage as inquisitively, entertainingly and yet soberly told by the protagonist’s son. Reaffirmed my conviction that it’s never too late to reinvent oneself, that every man’s story is built on the weight-defying backbone of a woman (or two or more), and that we are shaped but not defined by our families.

[Robert Pratt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read of his Father Time as a spy and then working for other agencies such as the UN. Was expecting that there would be something about the author being a spy or working for SiS.
Interesting to hear about how they organised travel and communication back in the 1920s to 1950s surprisingly well organised and amazing that author was able to collate it all

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a good read, perhaps too many characters to remember. I got the feeling that it would've been better had the book focused on mum over (estranged) dad, especially considering the role mum played over a very MIA dad. Alas, interesting.

[Gerard Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting recounting of the life of the author's father.

It provides an insight into the secret service from the Second World War

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

enjoyed reading about a different and time

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good read. Started off rather slowly but became more absorbing as I read past the halfway point.

[sbs transit · Rating 4 out of 5]

British Simon Tay. Makes a good pairing

[grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most interesting parts were about Margaret, not JBW lol. That man might’ve been a polyglot but my god he was a DOG!

[Olga]

With this material it should have been a page turner. It isn’t.

[Erin Sparks · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF just really slow and a bit

[Amira Kaadan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very entertaining

[Chrispy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining read, nothing spectacular but did the job for a holiday read. Features cameos from all the main cast in that Cold War espionage world from the 1940’s into the 1060’s.

[Rebecka Southworth · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the 1930's to 1990's JBW (Wood's father) worked for various secret agencies, organisations, universities and aid projects across the globe. His mother was also similarly employed by SIS (as was his Aunt) and young Wood spent his formative years living with his mother and stepfather in a 'spycamp'.

This story is Wood's attempt to piece together the extraordinairy life of his absent father. The constant travelling, half truths, blatant lies, dangerous missions and neglect of his four children is painstakingly researched.

The difficulty in finding records, speaking with contemporaries, locating sources and digging through archives must have made this project rather daunting. Wood's is able to glean much from personal encounters and letters but it is clear that there is much he couldn't discover. With my own ancestors being great fans of burning correspondence and writing very little of note in diaries, I sympathise!

It's commendable that Wood often writes his family story with humour, as personally I think I'd be far less forgiving. JBW didn't often feature in the lives of his family (his long suffering mother put up with a lot!) and he didn't contribute much financially or emotionally to the lives of any of his children. His lies about his daughter's must be especially painful to discover.

JBW is an enigmatic character and Wood struggles to pin down his father's mindset in terms of why he continued working in far flung countries despite having two families that needed him. JBW's blasé attitude and repeated phrase in correspondence of having 'no ties' must have been difficult for the author to read.

This isn't an easy story to read and I struggled to retain interest around the middle. I enjoyed the family story aspects at the beginning and end but didn't particularly enjoy the parts of the story where Wood's mother and other family members aren't mentioned. It's an engaging and eye opening story but, you have to be interested in the period 1930-1960 for the middle portion of the story to hold your interest.

[Clare Padfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary true story written by Alistair Wood detailing his upbringing as the child of a pair of British Intelligence spies though his father effectively deserted his family, only occasionally reappearing in their lives, once memorably to kidnap the authors older brother. His mother, once she’d tracked them down, put skills honed in post war Berlin, to good use, and stole his brother back. His father went on to have two more wives’ and another family while forging a career as an academic and working for the UN: his mother rejoining M16 and the boys were raised in a training camp based in a fort on the southcoast. It would make a very entertaining film !

[Dvora Treisman · Rating 1 out of 5]

First off, I am not allowed to review the edition I have sitting by my side because Goodreads says it is not published yet and I have to go through some procedure to swear that I have an advance copy. But I do not have an advance copy. I have a copy I bought recently from Amazon, published by Penguin. So here's the cover of the edition that I do not own and I am not allowed to show the cover of the edition that I do own.
Second, I didn't like the edition that I do own. I only got to page 30 and just getting that far was hard work. I never seemed to understand what Wood was saying and had to keep looking back to see if there was something that would help. There wasn't. It felt like I was reading a book that was partly in English and partly in some other language that I didn't know.
It's a shame, because I rarely find a non-fiction spy book that I don't like.