Secret Wars: One Hundred Years of British Intelligence Inside MI5 and MI6 [Hardcover]

Inside British Intelligence is described by its publisher as "the definitive and up-to-date history of two of the oldest and most powerful secret services in the world" though it has no source notes, has very little on M15 and M16 before 1990 - and what there is is unfamiliar only because it is often inaccurate - and is largely devoted to the activities of Mossad and CIA .

There is no mention of important British intelligence episodes such as the Zinoviev letter which influenced the outcome of the 1924 election, the breaking of Enigma, the Venlo incident where two SIS officers were captured at the outbreak of war, the Profumo Affair, Buster Crabb, the running of Penkovsky and his role in the Cuban missile crisis and the intelligence services role in Empire. All very curious.

Mr Thomas a self-styled "leading expert on the intelligence community" knows a great deal about what people wore (suits "tailored by Gieves & Hawkes, a hand-sewn shirt with double cuffs and his Travellers Club tie" etc), what they said, thought, ate and drank at particular moments but is less certain in other areas: sometimes Century House is the headquarters of M15 (p.208 and 255) and sometimes correctly M16 (p.286); sometimes Sir Christopher Curwen is head of M15 (p.216)and sometimes rightly M16 (p.195); Vernon Kell is head of MI6(p.421) and sometimes accurately M15(p.78); the M15 chiefs Stella Rimington and Patrick Walker also mysteriously work for M16 (p.177 and p.255). Maybe Mr Thomas knows something we don't?

He makes much of his `prime sources' which for the UK are: Eddie Chapman, a low-level World War Two agent who died aged 83 twelve years ago; the former M16 officer Richard Tomlinson who claims Princess Diana was murdered by British Intelligence and the former M15 couple Annie Machon (who believes Mossad was behind the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in London in 1994) and David Shayler (who has declared himself the messiah and having discovered eternal life). For some reason, Mr Thomas prefers these accounts to the thousands of readily available M15 documents declassified over the last twenty years.

He cites an extensive bibliography but doesn't appear to have consulted the books himself . A few pages about The Cambridge Spies, extensively chronicled in numerous books, gives a flavour of the Thomas interpretation of history : Kim Philby's father St John Philby is called Sir Harry Philby, Kim is a member of the Apostles (he was not) and is recruited at Cambridge (he was not) is a fluent Spanish speaker (he was not) and appears to defect from Britain rather than is commonly assumed Beirut. Maclean begins his spying career in 1938 some three years after the generally accepted date of his recruitment and his London apartment is bugged though in truth he didn't have one and commuted from just outside London.

Guy Burgess is described as a counterintelligence officer (he wasn't), serves alongside George Blake in the Far East Department (he doesn't) , his outrageous behaviour in Washington leads to calls for his recall in the summer of 1950 (he only arrived in August 1950) ; he is ordered to leave America "within forty-eight hours" of engineering traffic violations to warn Maclean( the violations take place in February1951 , have nothing to do with his departure and he leaves in May 1951), he returns to "a job in the Foreign Office" (he doesn't) etc. Blunt is identified by the press as `the Third Man' thirty years earlier than the reality. You get the picture.

The book, a series of incorrectly spelt names, discredited conspiracy theories and repetitious, often completely fabricated, stories the purpose of which it is sometimes difficult to ascertain, jumps around in time and location with no central narrative and it is difficult to ascertain at whom it is aimed since readers new to the subject will be baffled and those with some knowledge will be exasperated.

One can only assume in this wilderness of mirrors that a deeper deception game is being played by the proof reader and our intelligence expert, a winner, as he proudly states , of "the Mark Twain Society Award for Reporting Excellence and an Edgar Allan Poe Award for Investigation" to confuse us when the official histories of M15 by Christopher Andrew and M16 by Keith Jeffery appear later this year and next. That can be the only explanation for this farrago of nonsense.

This has to be the most poorly edited book I've ever read. It's structure is all over the place - jumping around, introducing endless lists of names who appear and then disappear never to be mentioned again, spanning continents decades and different agencies all within a few pages. It also has large chunks of the book devoted to topics nothing to do with the history of MI5 or MI6 - there's chapters worth of material on the CIA, sometimes with tenuous links to the UK, and often with no obvious reason for inclusion.

The IRA mainland bombing campaign (surely a main area of MI5 operation?) are largely passed over. The 7-7 bombings are afforded half a sentence - despite being arguably the most significant attack on mainland Britain since the war, and involving both MI5 and MI6 to a great extent. There is also no mention of extra-ordinary rendition and secret service complicity in torture. There is however an entire chapter focused on 9-11 and another on the US embassy bombings - which gives the impression (pervasive throughout the book) that this has been written by an expert on US intelligence, and everything has to be seen through the prism of America and relations to the CIA.

There is also a ridiculous level of detail at times - we learn that spy chief Rimington changed her contraceptive in the 1970s because she was suffering from blotchy skin - and are reassured that this problem then cleared up. This is not linked to anything else, it's just dropped in their for no reason. Who cares? And yet this is afforded more analysis than the 7-7 bombings!

It's quite an achievement to take a fascinating subject, with fascinating stories and create such a poor book. I've given it 3 stars because buried amongst the dross are some really interesting tales and insights - it's simply that you have to work hard to find them.

This book is extremely difficult to read due to the absolute lack of structure: the author relentlessly jumps back and forth in the space of just a few sentences. As a reader you're constantly asking yourself: what am I reading and where does this fit into the current chapter / overall content of the book. Provided the author knows what he's talking about (some reviewers debate this) he definitely doesn't know how to communicate it to the reader. Not recommended.