WW2 crime mystery set in Canterbury, Kent (and London)
Pre WW2 spy novel set largely in LONDON
24th June 2025
Every Spy a Traitor by Alex Gerlis, pre WW2 spy novel set largely in London.
Every Spy a Traitor is a quite complex spy novel. London is the main location but there are events that take place in France, Germany, and Moscow. The period covered is the couple of years before WW2 and many countries and their intelligence networks are competing for information that will give them the advantage in those uncertain and confused times. There are English agents in Moscow, Soviet and German agents in London, Soviet agents in Germany – and double agents everywhere. It is a very murky picture.
Those individuals who it is thought will make good spies are actively recruited into service – sometimes by deceit but more often by an appeal to their patriotism. You could think it is a quite gentlemanly world, but that would be very wrong. Yes, people are recruited by their tutors at Cambridge, but the murders, executions, and ‘disappearances’ that followed were much more down to earth. People are taught spycraft and use it effectively. An art historian is despatched on a mission to Moscow to work in the Icon museum of the Kremlin – and to observe all he sees. Another is imbedded into the headquarters of the UK communist party in London with a similar brief. It is discovered that the UK is being betrayed by a very senior government employee who has been seen (but not identified) in the inner sanctums of the Kremlin. The race is on to track him down. There is, of course, rivalry between the intelligence services within a country. MI5 and MI6 vie for influence in the UK and the various agencies of Soviet intelligence are (almost literally) at each other’s throats. You sometimes have to wonder who the actual enemy is…
Yes immediate pre-war period was full of rumours of who Russia was actually going to support. Was it going to side with Nazi Germany, or was it going to be on the side of the UK and France? The answer came with the signing of the Ribbentrop / Molotov pact in 1939 which saved the way for a joint German / Soviet invasion of Poland and the launch of WW2. The UK intelligence services were blindsided by the event. Questions were asked as to their competence…
Every Spy a Traitor demands your attention but it is worth it. It is of a different age, and demonstrates just how much has changed in the past ninety or so years.
Tony for the TripFiction team
Join team TripFiction on Social Media:
Twitter (@TripFiction), Facebook (@TripFiction.Literarywanderlust), YouTube (TripFiction #Literarywanderlust), Instagram (@TripFiction) and Pinterest (@TripFiction) and BlueSky(tripfiction.bsky.social) and Threads (@tripfiction)
Please wait...
