Spies and Other Gods

<p><b><u>From a former spy comes an electrifying novel about the mystery, paranoia and ruthlessness of the secretive world of British espionage</u></b><br><br><b>'Wonderfully entertaining' John Banville, author of Booker Prize-winning <i>The Sea</i></b><br><br><b>'Wolff offers a subtler version of comic spy fiction that treats its characters as amusing, fascinating and sometimes poignant enigmas' <i>Sunday Times</i></b><br><b><br>'Wolff is the new maestro' Simon Sebag Montefiore</b><br><br>The Head of British Intelligence is having a bad day. Only six months off retirement and Sir William Rentoul is wondering if he'll make it that far, what with the sudden descent of a brain fog dense enough to turn every day into a series of small humiliations.<br><br>To make matters worse, Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee - the body that oversees Sir William - has received an anonymous complaint from one of his officers. Sir William dimly recalls accepting that there should be a channel for whistleblowers, but he never expected that they would pick his most sensitive case, one involving an Iranian assassin and a trail of dead bodies, or that the person who turned up to poke their nose into his files should be a lowly parliamentary researcher named Aphra McQueen, who displays smarts, tenacity and rebelliousness in unsettling measures. <br><br>Aphra seems to know more about the operation than she is letting on. What will she uncover? What is she <i>really</i> up to? And can she survive the unexpected events that will bounce her from London to Birmingham to Paris to Lausanne?<br><br><b>'Extraordinarily good' <i>The Spectator</i></b><br><br><b>A memorable voice in the genre' <i>New York Times</i></b></p>