Bob Cook (1)

Four retired, elderly, MI5 officers who have no intention of writing or publishing their memoirs are accosted by a thuggish current MI5 officer at a colleague’s funeral and warned to under no circumstances consider publishing their memoirs. An official letter follows. A meeting with the Director General to complain about the uncouth treatment gets no satisfaction. So the only sensible course of action is to publish their memoirs, using one member of the group as the representative. Of course it’s all fiction and nonsense. Now the government is in a jam. Since no secrets have been revealed the men can’t be prosecuted. And since the policy is to neither confirm nor deny the memoirs can’t be publicly repudiated.

They are approached by a businessman whose phone is tapped and whose partner has been murdered and the group is drawn into investigating a scheme of arms trafficking and a rogue religious zealot working for the CIA. Espionage, corruption, humor and plain silliness are all mixed together. A fun story.… (meer)

Michael Wyman is a philosopher, an academic loaned to MI6, but has lost both jobs due to budget cuts. Before he leaves he discovers a potential leak when one of his East German networks is blown. He convinces his superiors that an investigation is necessary, despite alarming them with the potential costs.

Wyman’s self-generated persona as a “genial nincompoop” is good cover for a sharp and erudite mind. Being made doubly redundant and doubly betrayed by the system he believed in has brought out Wyman’s true talents as well as a desire for financial stability and a bit of revenge. He draws the CIA and KGB into his leak investigation. At one point the CIA officer, Rawls, realizes “Wyman’s success lay entirely in his ability to convince others of his own ineptitude and harmlessness.”

Bob Cook is good with a turn of phrase. A CIA supervisor is “A loud-mouthed slob who ate hamburgers instead of taking baths.” Another minor character is described as “a plump little barman with no hair and the complexion of a dead fish.”

An entertaining story from 1985 that probably wouldn’t get published today.… (meer)