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This is the author's first foray away from the purely literary field, where he has published award-winning novels A Breed of Heroes and The Devil's Own Work, as well as the literary biography of Ford Madox Ford, an author much concerned with The First World War, a period with which Alan Judd obviously feels great affinity.
Having recently retired from the Foreign Office, it is not surprising that he should turn his attention to another character and episode from that period, Commander Mansfield Smith Cumming RN. His feel for that era shows through in his sensitive and objective, almost Edwardian treatment of the subject. Commander Gumming was 50 and in charge of the naval boom defence at Southampton, when in August 1909 he was offered a `new billet' by Rear Admiral A W Bethell, Director of Naval Intelligence (DNI). This new billet became in time the Secret Service Bureau (SSB) and the Secret Intelligence Service or MI6.
Sir Mansfield Cumming of course left many curious legacies to a Service that is respected by friend and foe alike. Among these...