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Bookends

The completely ludicrous – and sometimes believable – world of the First World War spook

A review of Secrets in a Dead Fish, by Melanie King. It's John Le Carré - but a Janet and John version

12 July 2014

9:00 AM

12 July 2014

9:00 AM

There can’t have been this many books about the first world war since — just after the first world war. One publishing craze of the 1920s was books about spying, in which retired war spooks gave away their trade secrets and told tall stories about dead-letter drops and invisible ink.

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Marcus Berkmann is the author, among other things, of A Shed of One’s Own: Midlife without the Crisis.

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