EDWARD WILSON

Edward Wilson immigrated to the UK from America after serving in the Vietnam War. After his teaching career ended, he became the author of eight highly acclaimed books, including the Catesby spy thrillers as well as standalones.

‘Portrait of the Spy as is my seventh novel in the Catesby series. Even though it is a coming-of-age prequel, it is also a memoir that Catesby recounts to his history professor granddaughter. I had to go back to Catesby as a young man because I was running out of road. The previous book, , saw a bitter and disillusioned Catesby taking early retirement at the age of sixty. I also wanted to write about his experiences as an SOE officer parachuted into occupied France. I could, in part, relate it to my own experience as a Special Forces officer who was trained in the late 1960s to be dropped behind Soviet lines in Eastern Europe – but they sent us to Vietnam instead.