Classified! The Adventures of a Molehunter
By Nigel West
Over the past fifty years, Nigel West has been involved in almost every espionage-related investigation, breakthrough or revelation that you can think of. His molehunts have led to the unmasking of spies within MI5, MI6 and the CIA and the identification of numerous others – some of whom were crucial to the Allied victory in the Second World War and would have died without any public recognition if not for him.
His first encounter with the intelligence community was a lecture given at his school by John le Carré, the guest of a Benedictine monk who had recently retired from MI6. Later, West worked as a researcher for SOE agent Ronnie Seth, who was sentenced to death by the Nazis after being captured during Operation blunderhead, and exposed two of the Cambridge spies recruited by Anthony Blunt. For the fortieth anniversary of the D-Day landings, West traced the double agent codenamed garbo and brought him to London so he could be decorated at Buckingham Palace.
As action-packed as the lives of the spies he has written about, this is the story of the most enthralling and significant post-war intelligence revelations as told by Britain’s most authoritative writer on espionage and the secret services.
Reviews
“This book will become a spooks’ bible … In the endless hall of mirrors that is non-fiction spy writing, Nigel West always provides clear thinking and sane, no-nonsense analysis – however uncomfortable it might be for governments to read and regardless of what the establishment might want said.”
Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny
“Nigel West offers a unique perspective and research on some of the most fascinating cases in espionage history.”
Helen Fry, intelligence historian and author of Women in Intelligence
“Nigel West delivers – and this is no exception. Told with real verve and with the eye of an insider, Classified! will have you gripped.”
Damien Lewis, author of SAS Ghost Patrol and Churchill’s Secret Warriors
“Writers about the murky world of intelligence owe a huge debt to Nigel West. As the original pathfinder in the 1970s, exposing the disasters and successes of Britain’s then-unknown intelligence agencies, West masterfully delivered a succession of astonishing scoops … Describing his remarkable career with more revelations in this gripping memoir, he rightly claims applause for his triumphs.”
Tom Bower, author and journalist
BOOK OF THE WEEK “Fascinating”
Daily Mail
“Classified! is a welcome reminder of the need to treat claims made about, and by, intelligence agencies with a heavy dose of scepticism. It is at times entertaining and at times it sheds genuine light on a murky world protected by a veil of official secrecy – a world in which Nigel West has clearly revelled and in which it remains difficult to distinguish fact from fiction.”
TLS
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- Hardback, 384 pages
- ISBN: 9781785908538
- 29 February 2024
- £25.00
- eBook
- ISBN: 9781785908811
- 29 February 2024
- £19.99