The big news of the week is that Frankie’s Letter is published! It’s available from Amazon, from me (have a look at the Books page on the website) and, as they say, all good bookshops. If the bookshop you’re in hasn’t got it, then you have my absolute approval to query if the aforesaid bookshop is as good as purports to be. Unless, of course, it’s one of those specialist bookshops selling books only about Neuroscience, Horses, How To Grow Grass That Your Neighbours Will Envy, Tiddlywinks or whatever.
Frankie’s Letter isn’t a Jack story but a spy thriller set in the First World War. I originally self-published it on Kindle, but was delighted when Severn House decided to buy it. The cover, I think, look great, and there’s something about holding a “real” book that the Kindle, despite its many virtues, just can’t match.
One of the challenges of writing a spy story set in the First World War is conveying to the reader just how new (and amateur) the Secret Service was. We’re used to James Bond and his gadgets and Smiley’s smoke-filled rooms, but this is a different era, an era where an individual not only made a huge difference to the Service but actually was the Service.
I thought the best way to explain the time and the atmosphere of the story was to write an introduction. Here it is. I hope you enjoy it and I really hope you enjoy Frankie’s Letter
Historical Note
Frankie’s Letter is, of course, fiction, but one of its chief characters, Sir Charles Talbot, is based upon a real person.
William Melville, the man who would become the Secret Service’s “M”, was an Irishman, born in poverty in County Kerry in 1850. He ran away from home and in 1872 joined the London police. He made a name for himself as a quick-witted and capable officer, who, among other things, arrested Fenians and anarchists, was involved in the search for Jack The Ripper and was appointed as the Royal bodyguard. He retired, at the peak of his career, in 1903, with the rank of superintendent.
The retirement was fictional; what Melville actually did was to set up a small office near Scotland Yard under the name and title of W. Morgan, General Agent. As W. Morgan, he looked after both espionage and counter-espionage. His job was entirely hands-on. That not only suited Melville’s character, it was necessary. As he had agents but no staff, he had little choice.
In 1909, the service expanded, taking on Captain Vernon Kell, of the South Staffordshire Regiment and the flamboyant, sword-stick wielding ex-Naval officer, Mansfield Smith-Cunningham (“C”) to run various sections of the infant service. All three men, in their separate offices strung out along the Thames, were unofficially supported and officially unacknowledged by the government – a state of affairs which suited the modest William Melville very well indeed.
If anyone is interested in finding out more about this fascinating man, I can recommend Andrew Cook’s M: M15’s First Spymaster as a reliable and thoroughly absorbing account.
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