It is a pleasure to read the fruits of his mature scholarship as he revisits familiar ground, puncturing myths and putting British and Chinese views into reciprocal perspective

Robert Bickers is a pre-eminent chronicler of China... a great story told with splashes of colour and sharp wit

This detailed account valuably reconstructs the west's recent cultural malfeasance in China, and also challenges the simple, propaganda narrative that the CCP tells about its deliverance of China from Colonial aggressors

‘Compelling new biography… Hemming has done a wonderful espionage job of his own, scouring obscure files to bring long-hidden agents and their exploits to light. It is also a gripping portrait of an era, now long gone, when the establishment could accommodate such extravagant oddness.

Henry Hemming has found a peach of a subject... Full of new material, fresh interpretations and uncompromising integrity... He has managed the great feat of producing a rattling good read that is also a major piece of revisionist history

Hemming has written a very readable, thoughtful and comprehensive account

I raced through Henry Hemming's book, constantly having to remind myself that it wasn't a work of fiction. It really has everything you'd want from a great espionage story: incredible agents risking their lives; the highest possible stakes, with the safety of the world hanging in the balance; and at its heart a complicated, mercurial spy master in Maxwell Knight spinning an ever more intricate web.

A major new biography

Engaging and suspenseful

Lively contribution to a maverick literature

Crammed with cracking stories and founded on sound research, Henry Hemming’s biography of Maxwell Knight – ‘M’ – stands comparison with the bestselling books of Ben Macintyre.

Absolute proof that assiduous digging in the archives can produce scoops. This is intelligence research at its best, especially in the identification of hitherto anonymous agents. Definitely a great contribution to the literature.

A fascinating portrait of a complex man. Espionage writing at its best.

A cracking read, which both informs and entertains in equal measure.

Henry Hemming's excellent new life of Maxwell Knight [...] the most convincing, balanced and intricate biography of this extraordinary figure.

‘A terrific life of the brilliant and eccentric spymaster’

A jaw-droppingly revelatory biography

The odd chap is brought to life

This is a terrific book, well researched and superbly written

a fascinating biography

Hemming tells a story of great interest, bringing to light the exploits of an eccentric and magnetic personality, a man able to keep his professional and private lives rigorously separate and who fully justifies his posthumous reputation

Hemming gives an engrossing account of the remarkable life of a great eccentric

Lauren Elkin is one of our most valuable critical thinkers – the Susan Sontag of her generation

The acclaimed historian of Russia sweeps the brittle high society of pre-Revolutionary St Petersburg, the terror-chilled jails of Stalin's purges and the secrets of 1990s Moscow archives into a tragic panorama.'

A seamlessly written and moving portrait of the soviet Union in miniature from the Revolution to the age of Yeltsin.

What is striking is how he has thrown himself heart and soul into the romance and emotion of his drama. The novel throbs with sex, maternal feeling, revolutionary fervour and terror ... Terrific stuff