Portrait of the Spy as a Young Man

Book excerpt: A thrilling spy novel by a former special forces officer who is 'poised to inherit the mantle of John le Carré' 'The thinking person's John le Carré' Tribune 'Edward Wilson seems poised to inherit the mantle of John le Carré' Irish Independent 'More George Smiley than James Bond, Catesby will delight those readers looking for less blood and more intelligence in their spy thrillers' Publishers Weekly 1941: a teenage William Catesby leaves Cambridge to join the army and support the war effort. Parachuted into Occupied France as an SOE officer, he witnesses tragedies and remarkable feats of bravery during the French Resistance. 2014: now in his nineties, Catesby recounts his life to his granddaughter for the first time. Their interviews weave together the historical, the personal and the emotional, skipping across different decades and continents to reveal a complex and conflicted man. Catesby's incredible story recounts a life of spying and the trauma of war, but also lost love, yearning, and hope for the future. Praise for Edward Wilson: 'Stylistically sophisticated . . . Wilson knows how to hold the reader's attention' W.G. Sebald 'A reader is really privileged to come across something like this' Alan Sillitoe 'All too often, amid the glitzy gadgetry of the spy thriller, all the fast cars and sexual adventures, we lose sight of the essential seriousness of what is at stake. John le Carré reminds us, often, and so does Edward Wilson' Independent