Agent M: The Lives and Spies of MI5's Maxwell Knight 1st Edition

This will likely be a Best Seller. Hemming has brought to life intriguing people in history who are too often forgotten. I especially liked his focus on Maxwell Knight and all of the connected characters as it related to the desperate struggle between nations. Fascinating personalities. Very interesting to students of WWII history, like myself.Many new discoveries for me.Well written throughout with complete supporting notes, bibliography and index. The layout and type set are great. I look forward to more works from Mr. Hemming!!Hemming

Henry Hemming introduces us to Maxwell Knight a jazz playing naturalist with his own private menagerie who turns out to be a great talent spotter and spy runner for MI5. He is the model for Ian Fleming’s “M.” He marries three times, but none of them were consummated. In other words he was quite the quirky guy.Hemming’s biography largely focuses on the 1920’s and 1930’s where Knight is recruited into a private spying operation that infiltrates the British fascisti. Knight is well suited for this because he largely sympathetic to their goals and was a firm anti-communist. There he meets William Joyce who would go on to become the pro-Nazi broadcaster Lord Haw-Haw in the 1940's.When Knight formally joins MI5 his main focus is on Soviet espionage and its handmaiden the British Communist Party. There he pioneers the use of female agents and with the great work of Olga Gray he breaks a major Soviet spy ring that infiltrated the naval armaments industry. He stays focused on the Soviets until Italy invaded Ethiopia and then, and only then, does he wake up to the threat of fascism.Hemming focuses on Knight’s successes, but Knight, despite suspecting Anthony Blunt, he completely misses the notorious Cambridge Five spy ring. He comes close to detecting the Soviet infiltration of the British nuclear program, but objectively he fails.Hemming offers us great insight into the operations of MI5 and the life of one of its best agents. For those interested in this topic, though a bit long, his book is well worth the read.

The story of Maxwell Knight a/k/a Captain King a/k/a "M" is fascinating, and very well told by Henry Hemming. Many real situations were totally improbable or even downright funny and they weren't true. Having the author as the narrator was really great. He has a good voice for this type of thing. I won't give anything away, but just to say that if the history of British domestic counter-intelligence is of interest to you, you will like this book.

Look, if you aren't into spy history or how countries protect themselves then this book sure ain't for you. BUT, if you'd like to know about the fabulous and eccentric people who protected England and America from Fascist and Communist agents during WW2 then this book is one great read.It's the biography of England's most famous spy runner, the man who recruited and managed agents for MI5. In fact he was MI5. Maxwell Knight did the job better then the combined staffs of MI5 because he lived and breathed the safety of England in those terribly confused 1920s and 30s.But I have one warning. As you read this marvelous book and if you're an American you will start to feel a bit uncomfortable because the similarities between England and Europe in the 1920s and 30s and the United States in 2017. You'll read about the well meaning fools who couldn't understand Hitler and Stalin even though they had college educations and the college educated who shouted down their patriotic brethren. Stand aside and remember that history is prologue.Great read, great book, and it was favorably reviewed in both the Wall Street Journal and England's Country Life.

Fascinating view of the character, Maxwell Knight, but possibly even more fascinating view of Britain before, during and after World War II. Particularly the part played by Fascism pre-war, and the interplay between Fascism and Communism, and the recognition of how was actually the enemy. A must for those interested in the history of that time.

Interesting from first page to the last. Captivating history with current parallels. A must read lesson to prevent the destruction of democracy by current adversaries.

Wordy. Seems to be very detailed.

This is a gift, but I think I will read it also!

The subtitle of this fascinating biography proclaims that Maxwell Knight to the MI5's greatest spy-master. While this may or may not be the case, Knight - a leading light at MI5 between the 1930s and 1950s was incontrovertibly the strangest. Charismatic, funny and possessed of an instinctive talent for the arcane act of running spies, Knight was also an animal obsessive who in his 50s became a well known BBC natural history presenter. He shared his home with a reeking menagerie - with various exotic pets including a Himalayan monkey and a bear named Bessie. He had three marriages, but consummated none of them, probably because he was terrified of sex. And despite helping them break up Nazi spy rings during the War, he was himself an enthusiastic fascist who maintained such sympathies until at least the 1930s. Henry Hemming has done a superb job of peeling back the layers covering this most veiled of spies, even if he doesn't quite solved the conundrum posed by his subject.Knight's espionage career had unlikely origins. After a stint in as a dissolute jazz musician, he was recruited in his early 20s by a private intelligence agency, who set him the task of infiltrating the British Fascisti, the UK's first self-proclaimed fascist party. Knight rose quickly, becoming the party's director of intelligence and helping to recruit a young William Joyce (later the Nazi propagandist Lord Haw-Haw). The fact that he sympathized with the views of those on whom he reported must have made his rise easier. In 1931, aged 31, he was recruited by MI5, and negotiated permission to run his section - M section from his flat, with his monkeys in attendance Hemming's thoughtful biography brings to life an endearing figure whose fame within MI5 lasted well into the Cold War.Actually, despite his reputation as a master spook, Knight's record was patchy. He was easily distracted by his hobbies, which also included writing pulp fiction and dabbling in the occult. And as section head at MI5 he failed, for instance, to expose the Cambridge spies recruited by the Soviets. While Hemming's biography is rich in sub-plot and cameo characters, its main character remains shadowy. Ironically, it is only in fiction that Knight today stands in plain sight. As one of the models for Ian Fleming's 'M' and for Jack Brotherhood in John le Carré's A Perfect Spy.

This is an absolutely fascinating account of MI5's Greatest Spymaster the research Henry Hemming has done into his subject and Maxwell Knight is extraordinary. Maxwell Knight is drawn with great accuracy and attention to detail. I knew Maxwell Knight and the author brings him to life.Congratulations on an excellent and extremely readable book

An interesting insight into the work of the security service , far removed from James Bond. The recruitment process seemed to be hit and miss and yet came up with exceptional talent, who sadly paid the cost in ill health. Knights relationship with Lord Haw Haw was intriguing and was subject of much speculation. He seems to have been less than secretive about his role in the security service, and I was surprised that he survived. Of personal interest was his time at the Royal Oak Withypool a hamlet on Exmoor, which I have visited after a walk along the river Barle. Good read

I've had the fortune to read a fe of Henry's books and this is his best one yet. The author's knack for telling a good story is at top level and the depth of his research is there for all to see. Maxwell Knight is a fascinating yet flawed character with Hemming painting a detailed portrait while asking the right questions demanded by our age at every turn. I hugely enjoyed reading about one of the greatest of men and can't wait to see the next subject that Henry takes on.

could not put the book down. Hemming writes so very well; thoroughly researched and presented in a systematic and logical way his writing really matches my reading style and need for a well organised delivery. Maxwell Knight was clearly a complicated man but brilliant at his job and keeping the british public safe. terrific book. more like it please Mr Hemming.