Brassey’s Book of Espionage

“Essentially though not exclusively post‐1945 in content”, this history of the shadowy world of espionage, counter‐espionage, or, less emotively, intelligence gathering, is well‐planned and executed. Whether it is detailed enough to stand in a reference library is open to question. Public interest in this murky world has never been higher, largely due to successive intelligence fiascos, notably the long‐running saga of the Cambridge Four, Five or Six, often revealed after intense investigation by specialist journalists, continued by expert writers claiming an intelligence background themselves, and heightened by a burgeoning spy fiction industry, often translated to the television screen.

Certainly one...