Dimensions
129 x 198 x 32mm
Written with exclusive access to Whitehall papers and secret diaries, 'The Quest For C' is a unique inside history of the early years of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) through the life of its founder and original "C", Sir Mansfield Cumming. A retired naval officer, he was fifty when invited to form the Secret Service.
At first he had no staff and subsidised operations from his own pocket, mounting them himself - with disguise and swordstick. But from these unlikely beginnings grew a sophisticated organisation that ran extensive spy networks behind German lines during the First World War, later intervening in Soviet Russia with telling effect.
Cumming's legacy included not only an ethos that survives within the Secret Service to this day by the green ink and famous "C" signature still used by his successors. Packed with adventure and espionage, 'The Quest For C' brings both the man and that most secret of institutions powerfully to life.