Mark Mills

For the people of Malta in 1942, suffering daily bombing raids from the Luftwaffe, the British Army represent their only hope of defending their lone outpost in Nazi waters. And it is Max Chadwick's job to make certain the islanders keep thinking that.

August 1958Later, when it was over, he cast his thoughts back to that sun-struck May day in Cambridge - where it had all begun - and asked himself whether he would have done anything differently, knowing what he now did.It was not a question easily answered.He barely recognized himself in the...

France, 1935. At the poor man's end of the Riviera sits Le Rayol, a haven for artists, expatriates and refugees. Here, a world away from the rumblings of a continent heading towards war, Tom Nash has rebuilt his life after a turbulent career in the Secret Intelligence Service. His past, though, is...