Customer Reviews

A Spy's London: A Walk Book of 136 Sites in Central London Relating to Spies, Spycatchers & Subversives from More Than a Century of London'Ssecret H

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Mr Berkeley has accomplished what few guidebooks do well, in my opinion. That is to combine the sights with a narrative tying them together. Over 130 places are divided into short walking tours taking in most of London. The narrative itself is authoritative and, just as important in a book like this, entertaining. If you have an interest in Intelligence/Special Operations both during the World Wars and Cold War, and are looking for an unusual tour to do yourself,this is a book to consider. I probably ought to mention that it is unlike traditional guidebooks in another sense as well: there are few recommendations on eating-certainly none on lodging. But, another inexpensive guidebook should suffice to cover those areas. NB: Although published in 1997, I used the book July and November 1999 and all the sites I wanted to see are still there.

Not your every day tour guide to London, that's for sure. Roy Berkeley's meticulously researched book reads like a spy novel. But this is no work of fiction. The author takes you on a tour of of more than 130 places where some of the more notorious spies plied their craft. Non-descript flats were the home to the likes of double agents Kim Philby and Donald Maclean who betrayed their country. And while Baker Street will always be known as the home to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, a whole stretch of Baker Street during WWII was home to the British espionage and sabotage organization known as SOE (Special Operations Executive). Berkeley even touches on the home and workplace of the most famous spy writer in history Ian Fleming. Complete with photos and diagrams to get you around the espionage haunts of the city. A real gem! Bruce Edwards

Almost ten years old, it's a fascinating insight into places and their history in the wild and wacky world of espionage. Obviously well researched and with photos of the sites, it's a wonderful read - if you are interested in that kid of thing. From places dear to the British to those known to the Americans, it overs WW1 & WW2 and beyond. I ran into it, interestingly, listed by former US Intell people. What more can I say!

"A Spy's London" is great fun, and it is certainly an asset for anyone who is addicted to tales of British espionage, and who would like to envision the dead letter boxes at Holy Trinity Church and the Brompton Oratory; or to view Number 5 Bentinck Street (one of two apartments Victor Rothschild rented to Guy Burgess), the basement of which was the scene of roisterous wartime bashes, attended by both the reputable and disreputable of MI5 and SIS; or Number 6 Chesterfield gardens (the home of MI5's Tomas Harris), the drawing room of which was the scene of roisterous wartime bashes, attended by exactly the same people!

The author's black and white photographs are excellent, and although his area maps are good, they would have been greatly improved if they had been accompanied by a full map of London so that the reader could see each location within the larger perspective of the city. The index, which lists only the names of people but not of places, is less than useful if one wants to find the page numbers for Leconfield House or the Broadway Buildings (Perhaps since these housed MI5 and SIS respectively, the author wants to make his readers search for them). The book, which seems to have been published hastily, comes with an attached page listing eleven major mistakes, a much needed corrigendum, since entire sentences have been transposed or omitted (making one wonder whether the printers, "Pen & Sword Books," were actually "Sword & Shield Books" and whether the enterprise had been sabotaged by the KGB).

The stories about the inhabitants of the residences are entertaining. One could, however, do without the moralizing with which the author frames some of his anecdotes. His continual outrage that well-bred Englishmen had actually spied for the Soviet Union somehow recalls Claude Raines' shock that gambling had actually taken place at Rick's American Bar in "Casablanca."

The author is at his best when he sticks to the facts of who lived where, or when he tells a story and clearly attributes the source for his information. Sometimes, however, he is careless in his attributions, even omitting them (One can almost follow his line of thinking: this comes from Newton; that comes from Cave-Brown; here's Boyle; there's West.). He is also selective in what he tells the reader. For example, in relating the living arrangements of Number 5 Bentinck Street [p. 213], he tells us that Victor Rothschild "turned the place over to friends [who] sublet several floors" to Burgess and Blunt; he likewise makes it seem as if the "two young women (Rothschild's friends)" were in the upstairs flat quite by accident and had nothing to do with the double agents downstairs. He neglects to mention that one of these women was a Cambridge lover of Blunt and the other, Tess Mayor, was not only Blunt's closest friend (both at Cambridge and for the rest of his life) but also Rothschild's future wife (Carter, "Blunt," 166-67).

The author also repeats rumor as if it were fact, as in the case of the death of Tomas Harris, which he terms a "strange one-car accident: he was healthy and sober, his car was in excellent repair, the road was clear and dry. Yet the car suddenly veered and struck a tree" [p. 331] (He implies that it was a KGB hit to prevent Harris from implicating Blunt). Yet according to Desmond Bristow in "A Game of Moles," (p. 279) Harris' wife, who was also in the car (and only slightly injured) told the author (Bristow) that both she and her husband had been drinking and "Tommy drove like hell, and the more I asked him to be careful the faster he went, until we crossed a small humpback bridge, the car left the ground, he lost control, we skidded into a tree and I was thrown out." So much for a KGB hit!

While such objections might only matter to the reader who is thoroughly familiar with the relevant literature, they do impact on the manner in which the book is advertised on the back cover as a "lively and fact-filled ... book of 136 sites in central London relating to spies, spycatchers and subversives ..." Lively it is! (It is also fun to read!) But perhaps the blurb ought to be emended to read "lively" and filled with "fact and legend."