The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
This remarkable book is the product of many years of meticulous research and is so detailed and of such duration that its references are accessible via internet access. It is based on the notion that on 29 September 1923, the British Empire was at its most extensive,...
Alec Marsh, many congrats on the new book. This is your fourth Drabble & Harris thriller. What’s happened to our two heroes since Ghosts of the West? The big development is that Ernest Drabble has got married to Charlotte Moore whom he met in Ghosts of the West....
In the years just before the First World War, a boy was growing up in Imperial India. He was obstinate and full of life. Still a toddler, he chatted to the servants in Hindustani. His father nicknamed him Kim, after the spy hero of Rudyard Kipling’s novel, who could...
Adam Sisman, can you first tell us about the genesis of the book, The Secret Life of John le Carré? This shorter work serves as a coda to your full-length biography (although it can be read without being familiar with that work). When did you initially have the idea...
Historical Heroes: Alan Turing “It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Winston Churchill’s speech on Russia, 1939 It was the first action in the war at sea. A few hours after the declaration of war between Germany, Britain and France, the German...
US Assassinations: The Security Failures The news that the Secret Service is under investigation by the Dept. of Homeland Security for lapses in security before, during and after the attempt on former President Trump’s life should not necessarily come as a surprise to...
The Irresistible Appeal of the 1930s What is it about the 1930s that we find so irresistible? What is it about this decade that provides such constant inspiration to writers and filmmakers – not to mention our imaginations? Why can’t we get enough of the 1930s? I...
What was your inspiration for Savage Continent, your book about Europe in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War? Did it grow out of your work on the devastating bombing of Hamburg? That was the seed out of which it grew. Having seen how devastated Hamburg...
Summer Reads from Aspects of HistoryAlan Bardos Author of Rising TideMunich Wolf, by Rory Clements is set in 1935 Munich. When the body of a young English socialite is found, Kripo detective Sebastian Wolff is called in to solve the politically sensitive case. The...
In your new book Every Spy a Traitor you move away from a World War II/Post War setting and focus purely on a ‘Cold War’ with the Soviet Union in the 1930s. What was it that attracted you to the period? I liked the idea of a series that covered a longer time span,...
