The Unlikely Spy

London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996 0297817906. First hardback edition. Fine/Near Fine because DW is slightly rubbed but Not price-clipped. No inscriptions or annotations. Gilt lettering on red boards. 481 pages. A very clever plot based on the realities of the secrecy surrounding the Normandy landings on D-Day. A page-turning spy thriller in the tradition of Ken Follett. In 1943 London, a mild-mannered academic and friend of Churchill is drafted into MI5 to help break the most crucial intelligence case of World War II: the existence of a Nazi spy ring in England dedicated to uncovering D-Day invasion plans. Size: 180mm - 250mm. 454 pages. Publisher Marketing: "Catherine Blake is the model war widow. Ever since she lost her RAF pilot husband in the Battle of Britain, this beautiful aristocrat has kept a stiff upper lip while caring for victims of the blitz in London's hospitals. The problem is that Catherine Blake is also a deep-cover Nazi spy, charged by Hitler with uncovering the details of D-Day.Her nemesis is Alfred Vicary, a fumbling professor of history barely able to remember where he placed his threadbare tweed jacket, let alone sustain a relationship. But Vicary is also a confidant of Winston Churchill's, who has chosen this reclusive don to run England's critical counterintelligence operations. Against this backdrop comes Daniel Silva's The Unlikely Spy, a sophisticated and altogether exceptional World War II thriller. Based on fact, Silva's fast-paced novel moves effortlessly from the Berlin High Command's espionage centres to the U-boat-infested North Sea, from the privileged playgrounds of Long Island to Hyde Park's shadowy paths -- a grand canvas of intrigue that sweeps the reader along in a breathtaking race against time." .