The Scarlet Papers
Dr Max Archer has never forgotten the injustice of being turned down by the intelligence services as a young man, so now writes about them instead as an academic at the London School of Economics. He’s also thwarted in his career, not achieving the professor’s chair he wants so badly, and his wife has just divorced him. But then he is approached by Scarlet King, a high-ranking spy in her nineties. She was the first woman head of the Soviet desk at MI6 during the Cold War. She wants him to write her memoirs – The Scarlet Papers of the title. They hold a mind-blowing secret about British intelligence. Max is hooked. This is his chance to show the secret services and his wife what they’re missing and win that professorship. However, there’s a problem – life in jail for breaking the Official Secrets Act. Can he and Scarlet manage to publish and be damned before the secret services get onto them?
The novel is Tinker, Tailor, meets James Bond as a bitter, middle-aged lecturer with dreams. It’s sprinkled with well-known espionage figures and events ranging from Kim Philby and Vasili Mitrokhin, a KGB archivist who came in from the cold, to Sergei Skripal and the Salisbury poisonings. It weaves descriptions of tradecraft – secret meetings, letterbox drops and bugging – amid the intricate and deadly workings of the secret services. There are also worried politicians – Richardson was a Westminster speechwriter and researcher – and a lot of red herrings. A good, but long, read at almost 600 pages. Be prepared for a marathon rather than a sprint.
