Andrew Lownie Literary Agency :: Book :: The Spy and the Saboteur: The Untold Story of Victor Rothschild, (original) (raw)

The Spy and the Saboteur: The Untold Story of Victor Rothschild is the story of Victor Rothschild (1910-1990), a Cambridge don, first-class cricketer, scientist and heir to a banking dynasty who rose to become MI5’s wartime head of counter-sabotage, described by Harry Truman as “one of the world’s greatest experts in counter-espionage.” The problem for Rothschild, his MI5 colleagues and the British establishment, was knowing who to trust.

Victor Rothschild, Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt had been friends since their days at Cambridge. Blunt and Burgess had sub-let his flat during the War, lived with Tess Mayor, his future wife, and he had recommended them for jobs of national importance. They were members of the same clubs, gossiped at the same parties, and had risen together through the ranks of British Intelligence. But Blunt and Burgess had a shared secret that they never told Rothschild: they were Soviet agents, divulging everything to their Russian spymasters.

The Spy and the Saboteur is a tale of loyalty, duplicity and betrayal, courage and self-doubt, of a very English agent who made the mistake of trusting his closest friends. With access to newly released MI5 files and previously unheard testimony, it unlocks for the first time the story of Victor Rothschild."