I Used To Think It Was Clever

The Secret Intelligence Service I Knew Occupied Dusky Suites Of Little Rooms Opposite St James's Park Tube Station In London.

When It Comes To Recruiting People For The Secret World, What The Recruiters Are Looking For Is Pretty Much What I Had. I Was Unanchored, Looking For An Institution To Look After Me. I Had A Bit Of Larceny. I Understood Larceny. I Understood The Natural Criminality In People - Because It Was - It Was All Around Me. And I Have No Doubt There Was A Chunk Of It Inside Me Too. Once I Found That Identity, It Took Root In Me. It Exactly - It Gelled With The World That I'd Known In The Past.

It's Death, That's What I'm Suffering From. The Systematic Encroachment Of The Big D.

I Grew Up In A Completely Bookless Household. It Was My Father's Boast That He Had Never Read A Book From End To End.

We Have Learned In Recent Years To Translate Almost All Of Political Life In Terms Of Conspiracy. And The Spy Novel, As Never Before, Really, Has Come Into Its Own.