Author Note for The Man in the Corduroy Suit

Picture the MI5 archives, if you will – a gloomy, dusty catacomb devoted to the interment of a hundred years’ worth of classified documents. In the corner, a locked door, because although everything down here is secret, the contents of this room are really secret. A sign on the door reads THE DISCIPLINE FILES. Inside, there is clearly more material than anyone ever anticipated. Shelves are buckling, cardboard boxes spilling their contents onto the floor. Because they have a discipline problem, our spies, or so recent history would suggest. 

In Beside the Syrian Sea, an analyst steals hundreds of stolen documents and resurfaces in Beirut, desperate to negotiate for the release of his kidnapped father… 

In How to Betray Your Country, a disgraced agent-runner in emotional free fall tries to build a new life in Istanbul, only to stumble across a mysterious Islamic State figure who is not quite what he seems… 

In The Man in the Corduroy Suit, a talented interrogator looks into the suspected poisoning of a retired colleague, but a startling discovery forces him to choose between obeying his masters or his own conscience… 

Three stand-alone stories, three spies, one very serious problem. In this day and age, with the meaning of duty, tradition and loyalty increasingly open to interpretation, how do you make sure your spies do what they’re told? And what do you do when they don’t?