British Intelligence

In the British state, intelligence does not begin with a single founding moment or a clearly defined institution. It begins instead as a tension, a contradiction embedded within the machinery of government itself. Public money is quietly allocated for secret purposes, debated in open parliamentary chambers where the very act of discussion risks undermining the thing being funded. Ministers stand to justify expenditure that cannot be fully explained, offering assurances that the work is necessary while acknowledging, sometimes indirectly, that its details must remain concealed.

Jeff Hawkins, the man who created the PalmPilot, Treo smart phone, and other handheld devices, has reshaped our relationship to computers. Now he stands ready to revolutionize both neuroscience and computing in one stroke, with a new understanding of intelligence itself.

His code name is Nostradamus, and he’s an ancient alien super-intelligence awakened by pesky humans crawling upon his planet. He decides to use these low-grade morons, testing some, making the special ones his agents and sending them into Star Watch to make the military organization his own. It’s an insidious assault from within, run by a creature with fantastic predictive powers against what he considers an infantile species.

To the undiscerning eye, they were secretaries, typists, personal assistants, and telephonists. But those innocuous job titles provided the perfect cover for what were in reality a range of complex technical, clerical, and occupational roles. Often overlooked and underestimated by outsiders, the women of British intelligence encoded, decoded, and translated enemy messages, wrote propaganda, and oversaw agents, performing duties as diverse as they were indispensable.

“A delightful compendium of the kind of facts you immediately want to share with anyone you encounter . . . . Simon Winchester has firmly earned his place in history . . . as a promulgator of knowledge of every variety, perhaps the last of the famous explorers who crisscrossed the now-vanished...

Neuroscience-proven guidelines to think, act, and become smarter ASAP. It’s not what you know, it’s how you think. Practical Intelligence is not a common "think smarter" book. No, it starts from biological bases of analytical thinking, and how we can re-program ourselves for deep insight. This audiobook provides real, actionable tool after tool, because smart thinking is all about how, and not why or what. The bottom line is that you’ll be able to apply this audiobook’s thinking models immediately, until they become habit.

The Black Door explores the evolving relationship between successive British prime ministers and the intelligence agencies, from Asquith’s Secret Service Bureau to Cameron’s National Security Council. Intelligence can do a prime minister’s dirty work. For more than a century, secret wars...

From the twentieth century onward, women took on an extraordinary range of roles in intelligence, defying the conventions of their time. Across both world wars, far from being a small part of covert operations, women ran spy networks and escape lines, parachuted behind enemy lines, and interrogated prisoners. And, back in Bletchley and Whitehall, women's vital administrative work in MI offices kept the British war engine running. In this major, panoramic history, Helen Fry looks at the rich and varied work women undertook as civilians and in uniform.

A fresh portrait of the man behind James Bond, and his enduring impact, by an award-winning biographer with unprecedented access to the Fleming family papers. Ian Fleming's greatest creation, James Bond, has had an enormous and ongoing impact on our culture. What Bond represents about ideas of...

Brought to you by Penguin. From the former director of GCHQ, learn the methodology used by the British intelligence agencies to reach judgements, establish the right level of confidence and act decisively. Intelligence officers discern the truth. They gather information - often contradictory or...

“Bringing together rigorous research and a vibrant writing style” (School Library Journal), Code Name Verity meets Inglourious Basterds in this riotous, spirited biography of the most dangerous of all Allied spies, courageous and kickass Virginia Hall. When James Bond was still in diapers...

Two novels inspired by the author’s personal experience in British Intelligence during the First World War: in which Naval Intelligence officer Roger Waterlow, stuck ashore in a sweltering country in South-eastern Europe, and working from scraps of gossip gathered by his ramshackle network of agents, struggles to make a real difference in the war, against the indifference and incompetence of the British authorities.

For $2 million, scientist Alex McAuliff is hired by Dunstone, Ltd. to survey the geology of Jamaica's dark, mysterious interior. There is a catch: no one can know Dunstone is involved. When British Intelligence learns of Alex's mission, they let him in on a little secret: the last survey team never made it home. McAuliff's reception to the island is far from warm, and now Alex is a marked man. Someone wants him dead—but who? The only one clue to his survival is a single, mysterious word: Halidon.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Michael O'Leary by Matt Cooper, read by Stephen Hogan. September 2017. Ryanair cancels over 700,000 bookings and its powerful PR juggernaut comes shuddering to a halt. For once, the airline's aggressive and flamboyant CEO, Michael O'Leary, is contrite...

In 1917, a band of communist revolutionaries stormed the Winter Palace of Tsar Nicholas II - a dramatic and explosive act marking that Vladimir Lenin’s communist revolution was now underway. But Lenin would not be satisfied with overthrowing the Tsar. His goal was a global revolt that would topple all Western capitalist regimes - starting with the British Empire. Russian Roulette tells the spectacular and harrowing story of the British spies in revolutionary Russia and their mission to stop Lenin’s red tide from washing across the free world.

In this gripping debut espionage thriller of a uniquely talented novelist, Ian Fleming's real world of spies, love, passion, and danger is brought to life when a young woman inherits Fleming's long-hidden account of spying during World War II and must finish it to find out why people are trying...

For decades there has been argument in the media and amongst politicians about the possible existence and extent of a shoot-to-kill policy in Northern Ireland. MRF Shadow Troop confirms there was such an agenda in the early, chaotic days of British military intervention across the Irish Sea. But amongst the mountain of speculation there is little of any accuracy or authority relating to this period.

Vendeur d’aspirateurs à La Havane, James Wormold accepte un jour une mission de renseignement au service de Sa Majesté. Il n’a rien d’un espion ? Qu’à cela ne tienne : il va s’improviser agent secret et s’inventer un réseau imaginaire. À partir de cette imposture minuscule...

The British Royal Family and the intelligence community are two of the most mysterious and mythologized actors of the British State. Crown, Cloak, and Dagger offers a new history of how the two have been inextricably linked from the reign of Queen Victoria to the present.

1939. As Europe teeters on the brink of war, Alfred Kendall is tasked with carrying out a minor mission for the British Intelligence Service. Travelling to Prague, he takes his troubled young son, Hugh, as cover.  When Hitler invades Czechoslovakia, Alfred is given an ultimatum by the Czech Resistance. They will arrange for him to return to England, but only if he leaves his son Hugh behind as collateral. Hugh is soon taken under the wing of a Nazi colonel - Helmuth Scholl.