Author of Maxwell Knight, ‘MI5’s Greatest Spymaster’, uncovers details of hitherto unknown agents in interwar years
Seven British spies have been outed in a new biography of Maxwell Knight, the naturalist and spymaster who is believed to have been the model for M in Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. The seven worked for MI5 in the interwar years and included prominent members of the Communist party and fringe members of the Bloomsbury circle.
The identities of the spies are revealed in M: Maxwell Knight, MI5’s Greatest Spymaster, a new biography by historian Henry Hemming. “It was a totally unexpected find,” Hemming said. “I had no intention of finding this out, but as I started going through the files and building up a picture of who the spies run by Knight were, I realised that with a bit of detective work I could find out their names.” Although he admitted absolute proof of the spies’ true identities would only be found in closed MI5 files, he was “99.9% certain” that he had identified the ring.
Related: M: Maxwell Knight, M15’s Greatest Spymaster by Henry Hemming review
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