Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd: A review

 

This is a work of historical spy fiction published in 2012 and set during World War 1. It recounts the story of a British actor called Lysander Rief who is accidentally drawn into working for the British Secret Services.

The novel begins in Vienna in 1913, a time when Sigmund Freud’s work was becoming influential. Lysander has come to Vienna because of this for he has a rather personal problem and wishes to consult a psychiatrist well-versed in Freud’s work. He choice of Austria is also partly due to having and Austrian mother, a point which becomes important for the last part of the book. He is helped by the psychiatrist, but Lysander’s problem is mainly solved by a promiscuous artist called Hettie. Unfortunately, she also creates a problem by unfairly accusing Lysander of rape resulting in her pregnancy. He escapes a court case and likely imprisonment with the help of officials from the British Embassy who unbeknown to him are members of the Secret Service Bureau. They make it clear to him that he is now in their debt.

A few months later WW1 begins. Lysander is now back in the UK and enlists in the army. He is allocated a role as a German translator at an alien internment camp near Swansea, his German having improved during his time in Vienna. This caught my attention because my home is not far from Swansea. I can find no records of such a camp in South Wales during WW1, though I know of at least two built
during WW2. Lysander doesn’t remain a soldier for long. While on leave at his home in London he is contacted by the officials who helped him in Vienna: the time has come for him to repay his debt. He is instructed to undertake a code-breaking mission in Geneva. Later, there is a further assignment to find a German agent planted within the War Office. I won’t give away any further details so that I don’t spoil the plot for anyone, but these missions are difficult and dangerous. The novel ends with the wait for sunrise in the title: it is a tense wait which takes place on Hampstead Heath.

William Boyd has written many novels, and they are all well-crafted and readable. Several have won literary prizes, and some have been turned into TV series, such as Restless which also has an espionage theme involving a female spy during WW2. I’d say that Waiting for Sunrise is as good as any of these. Readers who like a historical slant should take to it, and there is a fair amount of action, adventure and romance, as well as good locations. On the down side, there is quite a lot of psychology at the start which might not suit everyone. I would have also liked more detail in the references to the early days of the British Secret Services. Overall, a good read for those who like a large helping of history with their spies.

You can listen to a podcast of this review in the form of a Spybrary Brush Pass

Melita Norwood: British pensioner, and long-term Soviet spy

Melita, or Letty, Norwood was a committed Communist who spied for the Soviet Union throughout her working life, starting in the 1930s.

Letty was born ‘Melita Sirnis’ in 1912 to an English mother and a Latvian father, Peter Sirnis, a translator of Tolstoy. Both parents were Communists, and when Letty was young the family lived in a commune of sorts at Tuckton House in Sussex. They subsequently moved to the Hampstead area and had strong links to the Russian émigré community there, including the residents of Isokon Flats, a modernist building whose residents later included Agatha Christie. The Sirnis family, and many of their friends, regularly attended meetings of the Friends of the Soviet Union (FSU).

From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/801623.stm

Melita started a degree in Latin at Southampton University but left after the first year and obtained an administrative post at a major London bakery. The technical know-how she picked up there helped her get a secretarial job at the research organisation British Non-Ferrous Metals (BNF) near Euston. She soon realised that her work would give her access to information useful to the USSR, and in 1934 she approached Andrew Rothstein, a key FSU member, who put her in touch with the Soviet agents in the UK. She was soon passing documents and photographs to Russia, though she probably didn’t think of herself as a spy. In her mind she was just correcting an imbalance of knowledge. She was soon to marry Hilary Nussbaum, a Maths teacher and stamp collector of Russian origin. He changed his name to ‘Norwood’ before they married, and the couple lived in Bexleyheath near the school where he taught. Letty had a daughter in the early 1940s but by the end of the war she was back with BMP and elevated to the role of personal assistant to the director, G.L. Bailey.

Melita – agent ‘Hola’ - was controlled by a succession of Soviet agents including Percy Gladding, Ursula Beurton and Gordon Lonsdale. Before and during WW2, the secrets she sent to Russia related mostly to the use of metals in ships, tanks and weapons. During the subsequent Cold War period, the focus shifted to the development of the atomic bomb. It is thought that Letty’s information helped Russia develop an atomic weapon four years earlier than they otherwise would have. The Soviets rewarded her work with the ‘Order of the Red Banner’, and in 1979 Letty, now retired, travelled to Moscow to pick up the award under the cover of a stamp collecting event (Hilary was a key figure in the British Philately Society).

Though she was vetted several times over her career, the truth about her was not fully realised until the defection of Vasili Mitrokhin in 1992. Her role in espionage over four decades was revealed in an article in the Times of Saturday, 11^th September, 1999, and there was an announcement about her in Parliament the following week. Letty was not prosecuted because of her advanced age. She died six years later, aged 93.

Letty Norwood is one of the two main characters in ParallelShadows, a novel which provides a reasonably faithful portrayal of her life history. She was also the inspiration for Red Joan by Jennie Rooney which was made into a film, though ‘Joan’ was not much like the real Melita Norwood.

References

Andrew, C. (2009) The Defence of the Realm: The authorised history of MI5. Allen Lane, London.

Burke, D. (2008) The Spy who came in from the Co-op. Boydell Press, Suffolk.

Burke, D. (2014) The Lawn Road Flats. Boydell Press, Suffolk

Olga Gray: 1930s Double Agent

Olga Gray was an ordinary London secretary, but also a significant double-agent. During the 1930s she posed as a Soviet agent whilst working for MI5.

Olga was born in Manchester in 1906 and lived in Birmingham. In 1931 she was recruited into MI5 by Dolly Pyle, an agent of the famous spymaster Maxwell Knight. Subsequently, Olga moved to London, but continued to work for the Automobile Association (AA) as a cover for her secret work. At Knight’s instigation, Olga attended meetings of the Friends of the Soviet Union and was eventually offered part-time work for the organisation. This was largely run by the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) led by Harry Pollitt. Another key CPGB member, Percy Glading, became Olga’s Communist controller. But before being trusted with secret work for the Soviet Union, Olga was sent on a mission to India involving an illicit transfer of funds. This demanding journey, on top of an already unhappy existence in London, caused her to experience a mental breakdown in 1935. She wanted to end all espionage work at this point, but Maxwell Knight persuaded her to persist. Knight was an effective controller but a definite eccentric. He kept an assortment of pets and would later present nature programmes for the BBC. He was married three times, and also had several chaste relationships with female agents, though there is no evidence that this occurred in Olga’s case. But Percy Glading is thought to have been keen on her, an added difficulty when they later worked together at Holland Road, Kensington.

Olga Gray (from Mail Online article)

Olga met several Communist agents, including Arnold Deutsch and Theodore Maly, the chief USSR agent in the UK during the 1930s. The knowledge she acquired was critical to the success of 1938 Woolwich Arsenal Case leading to the incarceration of Glading and others. As a reward for her efforts, Olga was taken to dinner in the Ritz when the case ended. But the event also marked her dismissal from MI5 on the basis that her cover was blown. She stayed in SE England and became an ambulance driver during WW2. During this time, she met a Canadian serviceman whom she married, and they moved to Canada around the end of the War. There is no evidence that she did any further work for either the British or Canadian secret services, but in the 1980s she was visited at her home in in a Toronto suburb by the journalist Anthony Masters who was undertaking research for a biography of Maxwell Knight. Unfortunately, he also wrote a Mail on Sunday article which revealed details of Olga’s past and present which caused her a further mental relapse.

Olga Gray is one of the two lead characters in Parallel Shadows. The novel provides a fairly faithful portrayal of her pre-War activities, highlighting her bravery and ingenuity despite many dangers. A plausible post-War intelligence role is also created in which Olga identifies further Soviet agents, and reflects on the parallel life of a contemporary spy, Melita Norwood.

References

Andrew, C. (2009) The Defence of the Realm: The authorised history of MI5. Allen Lane, London.

Burke, D. (2008) The Spy who came in from the Co-op. Boydell Press, Suffolk.

Hemming, H. (2017) Maxwell Knight, MI5’s Greatest Spymaster. Preface, London.

Hemming, H. (2017) The peroxide blonde who was Britain’s bravest spy: How Olga Gray risked her life to stop the Soviets stealing our war secrets despite being crippled by insecurity. Mail Online. Available at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4845218/Britain-s-bravest-spy-Olga-Gray-thwarted-Soviets.html

Masters, A. (1984) The Man who was M. Grafton, London