NOC: Non-Official Cover: British Secret Operations

Writing under a pseudonym, a former spy irreverently dissects his work for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), where he worked between 1973 and 1993, in this "documentary thriller." Scoffing at the glamorous James Bond image, the author summarizes the world of intelligence as a dismal struggle among predators. Despite his conscious straddling of the border between fact and fiction, Anderson presents scenes vividly, including his break-in to a Libyan chemical weapons plant and his encounters with famed terrorist Carlos the Jackal. The author moves from the intricacies of espionage to the money-hungry machinations of pharmaceutical companies. His theme here is not espionage as such, but rather his life as a spy. And, the experiences he describes in the first person infuse his work with an informed, if disenchanted, perspective that will appeal to anyone interested in the world of intelligence operations.