Ashenden - by W Somerset Maugham (Paperback)

About the Book

These sixteen stories chronicle the adventures of Ashenden as he moves across WWI-riddled Europe, featuring murder, intrigue, deceptions, & the soul-crushing, often-anonymous reality of modern spycraft.

Book Synopsis

The classic spy story collection that inspired John Le Carré, Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, Len Deighton and other 20th Century masters of the spy thriller, & caused a national security scandal in Churchill's Britain.

It did not take them long to settle things and when Ashenden rose to go he had already made careful note of his instructions. He was to start for Geneva next day. The last words that R. said to him, with a casualness that made them impressive, were:

"There's just one thing I think you ought to know before you take on this job. And don't forget it. If you do well you'll get no thanks and if you get into trouble you'll get no help. Does that suit you?"

"Perfectly."

"Then I'll wish you good afternoon."

These sixteen interconnected stories chronicle the adventures of Ashenden-upstanding citizen, writer, and spy-as he moves across WWI-riddled Europe on behalf of His Majesty's Secret Service, featuring murder, intrigue, deceptions, & the soul-crushing, often-anonymous reality of modern spycraft.

Review Quotes

The Ashenden stories remind us that even when the stakes are astronomically high, a spy's job can be a lowdown grind. We thrill to the idea of action-but in the end, the gathering of intelligence is not a rip-roaring yarn. It's often tragic, and very grubby. Julia Keller, NPR

A collection of stories so accurate that Churchill ordered the destruction of 14 of them, while Russian intelligence immediately set up a special unit to read British spy novels for clues. New Statesman

The first spy story written by someone who had been there and done that. A humane and compassionate antidote to two-fisted, square-jawed heroes battling dastardly foreigners. The head of British Intelligence is known only as "R", anticipating James Bond's "M" by a quarter of a century. The Times

It is ... an endless chronicle of strange, vivid people who, in the intrigues of war, rise out of fancy for a moment of tangible form, flash strongly their brief second, and fade back into the dusk of a macabre screen. The Saturday Review of Literature, 1928