Praised as the thinking man's John Le Carre, Wilson has a natural touch for the intrigues of intercontinental spying like no other. His new thriller revisits the darkest days of the Cold War and weaves an intriguing web of intrigue, treachery, double and triple crosses against the background of the Cuban missile crisis, the Profumo affair and the Vietnam war, with a working class British spy, William Catesby slowly unravelling successive layers upon layers of betrayal and subterfuge and in the process uncovering a secret history of Britain and its adversaries and allies during that period, with an insistent emphasis on class values, snobbery and sexual confusion. With surprise appearances by many an actual person or politician, this is a twisting tale of what might actually have happened that will tickle the imagination long after you've set the book down.
Book Four of the bestselling Catesby spy series. British intelligence has a deep penetration mole in the KGB. When that mole reports that a Soviet spy ring in London is no longer sending intelligence to Moscow, MI6 are worried. Catesby is sent on a mole hunt that leads him through the seamy sex scandals of 1960s London to the jungles of Vietnam. The tectonic plates of world power are shifting. The Whitehall Mandarin is set in a world of political and sexual ambiguity. No one is who they seem to be.
Edward Wilson is a highly acclaimed writer, whose novels focus on espionage and the Cold War. He was born in Baltimore, and now lives in Suffolk. Wilson, who has won praise from the TLS as well as Mail on Sunday, is a master of ambiguity who creates likeable villains and detestable heroes. He uses his background as a scholar, soldier and cosmopolitan expatriate to create authentic settings and verifiable plots.
