Nothing Tra La La?

“In the early spring of nineteen sixty-three, there was a rumour — unconfirmed and a little scandalous — that George Smiley might almost be ...

I've been listening to this, the fourth of Mick Herron's Slow Horses books, a little behind the run of the TV version and it's b...

This is the third of the, to date, eight Slough House novels (following Slow Horses and Dead Lions ). Again, the TV version - which I saw f...

How do you bring an audience up to speed on the story so far? I posted in April that the surviving episode of children's adventure seria...

River Cartwright is a nepo baby in MI5, his grandfather a retired top spook. But River cocks up a big operation and, in disgrace, is assigne...

This is a sharp, funny memoir by someone behind a glut of much loved children's TV, including Jackanory , Rentaghost and  Round the Twis...

I really enjoyed this wide-ranging ramble through Bond, the Beatles and the British psyche. It charts the interweaving histories of the Fabs...

On 21 June 1922, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov is called before the Emergency Committee of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affair...

I've long been on the look-out for this original novel based on the ITV spy series The Sandbaggers (1978-80) . A chum lent it to me last...

This extraordinary, meticulously researched book is an essential read just now. Belton charts the rise and rise of Vladimir Putin from his e...

Julian Lawnsdsley has set up a bookshop in a small town, escaping from the evils of the City. One potential customer is a peculiar old man w...

The new issue of medical journal Lancet Psychiatry includes my essay, "Was it obvious to everyone else that I'd fallen for a lie?&q...

I'm immersed in the world of Harry Palmer at the moment for a thing I'm writing. That's included finally getting round to  The I...

The middle chapter of The Book of Dust is thrilling, rich and downright weird. Since reading volume one - La Belle Sauvage - I've go...

I was given this 2017 book after chatting with a friend about Andrew O'Hagan's 60,000 word essay on the Grenfell fire , which bri...

This is brilliant. In 1950, Juliet Armstrong is a BBC radio producer working in Schools (the department always has a capital S). But ten ...

"I, who was taught from the cradle to deny, deny and deny again - taught by the very Service that is seeking to drag a confession out...

This life of SOE agent "Christine Granville" - born  Maria Krystyna Janina Skarbek in Poland in 1908 - took a while to get in ...

Yesterday, the Dr was up early to get to BBC Broadcasting House, where she was a guest on Today and talked to John Humphrys about Differen...

Via a tweet from my chum Farah earlier in the year, I learnt of  A Firework for Oliver (1964) by John Sanders. Brother Tom  tracked down...