Posts Tagged ‘SIX’

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Worsal Nammidge and his day of birth

Monday, November 14th, 2011

Tomorrow, 28 years ago, Biteback Publishing’s very own book-cover-designer-extraordinaire was born.

He was born in a little town called Reading. And now, he looks like this:

Every time Nam designs a new book cover or typesets the latest manuscript a piece of him fades away…

At times such as these, it’s important that I showcase the excellent work Nam has been doing for us since he started in May, just so that you, the reader, can appreciate what a special day the 15th November 1983 really was.

Show Me A Hero is available now, priced £17.99
Flying Free by Nigel Farage is available now, priced, £8.99
When One Door Closes pb and SIX pb are available to pre-order here and here.

I’m afraid you can’t buy a Namkwan Cho anywhere. You can’t even pre-order him. For he is ours, and ours alone.

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Michael Smith – expert talking head and general know-all

Thursday, October 27th, 2011

This is Michael Smith, he’s one of our commissioning editors. He’s also the author of SIX and The Secrets of Station X. But that’s not all. Michael is a TEEVEE star.

This is Michael on the telly on Tuesday. Not just any telly, your telly, because this was on BBC2 and everyone with a T.V. has terrestrial.

Michael appeared as an expert talking head for the documentary Code-Breakers: Bletchley Park’s Lost Heroes. I find it fascinating when I see people I know on the telly. Especially as expert talking heads. Big Cheese does these things occasionally, particularly when someone wants him to unpick the inner workings of Ann Widdecombe’s mind, or talk glowingly about Margaret Thatcher. But then if you’ve written, edited and published numerous books on Maggie and gone on a national tour with Widders – why wouldn’t you get the pundit treatment?

It’s for writing excellent books such as these that make Michael the perfect talking head on all things concerning Bletchley Park and Britain’s codebreakers. He’s also a whizz on spies and spying.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that he KNOWS ALL. More or less.

If you wish to own a book by a man dubbed ‘one of the world’s leading experts on Britain’s spies’ then get your copy of SIX here priced £12.99 and Secrets of Station X, here priced £9.99.

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eBook excitement!

Thursday, March 31st, 2011

This afternoon has been pretty darn exciting for the Biteback team. Not only did we have a stationary delivery (woop!), but we also caught a clip of Michael Smith, author of Six: A History of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service and one of Biteback’s commissioning editors talking about Libya on Sky News, all whilst watching the Spooks team film a fight scene outside our office window. Phew!

And then, when it looks like the day just can’t get any better, comes the real cherry on the cake of excitement: Francis Beckett’s The Prime Ministers Who Never Were is now officially available in eBook format and can be downloaded for just £9.20, from here. And this morning, Biteback’s biggest fan – Mark Pack from Lib Dem Voice – even posted a rather complimentary review of this collection of political counterfactuals.

Our eminently well-read and knowledgeable reviewer says, and he should know, that ‘serious counter-factuals by experts in a field are rather rare’, but that thanks to this publication’s ‘heavyweight list of contributors’, combined with ‘strikingly original’ ideas, The Prime Ministers Who Never Were is an authoritative examination of the sizeable impact of tiny twists of fate on our Prime Ministerial lineage. For this reason, Mark says, Francis Beckett’s most recent book is a ‘welcome publication’.

The Prime Ministers Who Never Were is available here, priced £14.99, or here as an eBook, priced £9.20. The lovely Mark Pack’s review can be read in full here.

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Only now has Michael Smith achieved his dream…

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

I know that Michael Smith isn’t one to brag. But he’s a pretty accomplished fellow.

Michael Smith has written a bestseller or two. But who cares, right?

Michael Smith is an award-winning journalist, former army intelligence officer and defence correspondent for the Sunday Times - as could I be! If I had any, I don’t know… talent. And perhaps some balls of steel. Easy really.

He’s done other stuff too!

But November 2011 is the month that dreams are made of. For it is only now that Michael Smith has written and had an article published by ultimate lads-mag FHM.

SIX, Smith’s latest book boasts the volume title Murder and Mayhem 1909 – 1939 and it doesn’t disappoint. He’s done his research and uncovered some remarkable stories. Serial killers, disembowlment, prostitutes, walking sticks that double-up as swords – not to mention the Mad Monk’s crushed nuts! Needless-to-say FHM loved it.

THE FIRST JAMES BOND:

They went with this quote from Mick’s piece to illustrate the article:

“I ran the blade through the gentleman’s side. He screamed and collapsed.”

Call me sensational, but this sounds more like what nightmares are made of.

All the same, we at Biteback would like to congratulate Michael Smith on now, and only now, being truly accomplished.

Buy your copy of SIX now in hardback for £19.99

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Ex British Intelligence Officer talks MI6 with Russia Today

Friday, October 22nd, 2010

“Sensational… a fascinating book.” – Aleksandr Gurnov – Russia Today

Author Michael Smith talks to Aleksandr Gurnov from Russia Today about the intriguing revelations that can be found in his book, SIX: A History of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service.

This first part of a two-part series covers the history of the British Secret service from 1909 up until the eve of the Second World War from the perspective of former British Army Intelligence Officer, Michael Smith.

In his interview for Russia Today, Smith tells of the difficulties he faced in information gathering for the book and discusses the fascinating account it gives of the Secret Intelligence Service’s involvement in events; including the assassination of Rasputin and previously untold work against Nazi Germany ahead of the Second World War. The second part will tell the story from the outbreak of World War Two to the present, showing the development of the agency into the model for the world’s spies during the Cold War, and detailing the work of MI6 in Afghanistan and Iraq today.

SIX: A History of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service is available now from the Biteback site priced £19.99

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Real-life espionage is nothing like James Bond – actually it is, says Mick Smith

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

By Mick Smith

The resurgence of interest in espionage comes at an opportune time for us here at Biteback. It has been fuelled by the FBI’s discovery of Russian intelligence service sleeper cells spread across America, including the beautiful blonde Russian spy Anna Chapman, and the tragic, and still unexplained, case of a GCHQ officer murdered in Pimlico. We expect spy thrillers to be laced with murder, mystery and the odd femme fatale, but after years of being told that “the real stuff is nothing like James Bond”, it comes as a bit of a surprise to discover that it very often is.

Certainly, as far as my latest book SIX: A History of Britain’s Secret Service, is concerned, there is very little evidence that “it’s nothing like James Bond”, rather the reverse. SIX is so full of murder and mayhem that we made it the sub-title of the book, and this first part, covering the period from the Service’s foundation in 1909 to the outbreak of the Second World War, is packed with Boy’s Own heroes, and noir-style femmes fatales, many of whom have never been heard of before.

But SIX is not the only espionage book we’re publishing. We have just published the three opening titles of our exciting new series Dialogue Espionage Classics, with several more titles already on the stocks waiting to go to print, one of them a book that the British government completely suppressed when it first came out, of which more very soon. (more…)

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Praise for SIX from ARRSE

Friday, August 13th, 2010

Thanks to ARRSE (The Army Rumour Service) for the fantastic review of Michael Smith’s SIX: A History of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service.

“This is a fine book. On one level, it is a rattling good yarn which does what it says on the cover; on another level, Smith’s research illuminates the sometimes complex (and to the indifferent, dull) bureaucratic manoeuvring which is a feature of any intelligence organisation and on a third level, it is a fascinating insight into the people who came together to create one of the world’s foremost intelligence services.”

To read the full review, click here.

SIX: A History of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. Part 1: Murder and Mayhem is available to buy from Biteback, priced £19.99

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SIX terrific review in the Sunday Times

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

9781906447007
Dominic Sandbrook, reviewing Michael Smith’s Six: A history of Britain’s secret intelligence service called the book “engrossing”, and comments, “As a rollicking chronicle of demented derring-do, Smith’s book is hard to beat. His research is prodigious and his eye for a good story impeccable, and his book, while perfectly scholarly, often reads like a real-life James Bond thriller.”

To read the review on the Sunday Times website, click here. You will need to log in to access.

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The Oxford Times discusses the history of MI6 with Mick Smith

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

Maggie Hartford of The Oxford Times writes:

Sword-stick assassinations; the slow torture of Rasputin, found with his testicles crushed; a sack tied to a door, containing the remains of a secret agent. Michael Smith’s latest book, Six: A History of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, doesn’t stint on violence. He said: “People have accused me of exaggerating, because the subtitle is Murder and Mayhem, but it’s all there in the facts.”

Mr Smith made his name in 2004 as defence correspondent of the Sunday Times, exposing the Downing Street memos, which rocked the Bush and Blair administrations with suggestions that the intelligence that sparked the war in Iraq was ‘fixed’.

He is uniquely placed to write about spying and spies, because he used to be one.

To continue reading, please click here.

SIX is available to buy here, priced £19.99.

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How Britain’s first spy chief ordered Rasputin’s murder (in a way that would make every man’s eyes water)

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

9781906447007The Daily Mail‘s Annabel Venning looks at the secrets exposed by Michael Smith in his new book SIX: A History of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service:

The Rolls-Royce sped along the road through the woods outside Meaux, northern France. It was October 1914, two months after the start of World War I.
Driving the car was Alastair Cumming, a 24-year-old intelligence officer. Beside him sat his father, Mansfield Cumming, head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, who had come out to France to visit him. As well as their intelligence work, they shared a love of fast cars. Then, in an instant, the Rolls suffered a puncture. The car veered off the road, smashed into a tree and overturned, pinning Mansfield by the leg and flinging his son out onto his head. Hearing his son moaning, Mansfield tried to extricate himself from the wreckage and crawl over to him. Despite struggling, he couldn’t free his leg. And so, taking out his penknife, he began hacking through the tendons and bone until he had severed his lower leg and freed himself. He then crawled over to where Alastair lay and managed to spread his coat over his dying son. He was found, some time later, unconscious, by the body of his son. This act of extraordinary bravery, sacrifice and a willingness to use whatever means necessary, however unpleasant, to achieve an end, was to become a secret service legend…

To read more (and to find out how Rasputin really met his end) visit the Daily Mail website here.

SIX: A History of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service by Michael Smith is available to buy here.

Richard Cullen’s own investigation into the murder of Rasputin – Rasputin: The role of the British Secret Service in his torture and murder is also available to buy here.

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