Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Odd People: Hunting Spies in the First World War
    Unavailable
    Odd People: Hunting Spies in the First World War
    Unavailable
    Odd People: Hunting Spies in the First World War
    Ebook342 pages5 hours

    Odd People: Hunting Spies in the First World War

    By Basil Thomson

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    First World War espionage was a fascinating and dangerous affair, spawning widespread paranoia in its clandestine wake. The hysteria of the age, stoked by those within the British establishment who sought to manipulate popular panic, meant there was no shortage of suspects. Exaggerated claims were rife: some 80,000 Germans were supposedly hidden all over Britain, just waiting for an impending (and imagined) invasion. No one could be trusted... Against this backdrop, as head of Scotland Yard's Criminal Investigation Department, it was Basil Thomson's responsibility to hunt, arrest and interrogate the potential German spies identified by the nascent British intelligence services. Thomson's story is an extraordinary compendium of sleuthing and secrets from a real-life Sherlock Holmes, following the trails of the many specimens he tracked, including the famous dancer, courtesan and spy, Mata Hari. Yet his activities gained him enemies, as did his criticism of British intelligence, his ambition to control MI5 and his efforts to root out left-wing revolutionaries - which would ultimately prove to be the undoing of his career. Odd People is the insightful and wittily observed account of Thomson's incomparably exciting job, offering us a rare glimpse into the dizzying world of spies and the mind of the detective charged with foiling their elaborate plots. The Dialogue Espionage Classics series began in 2010 with the purpose of bringing back classic out-of-print spy stories that should never be forgotten. From the Great War to the Cold War, from the French Resistance to the Cambridge Five, from Special Operations to Bletchley Park, this fascinating spy history series includes some of the best military, espionage and adventure stories ever told.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBiteback Publishing
    Release dateJan 8, 2015
    ISBN9781849548625
    Unavailable
    Odd People: Hunting Spies in the First World War

    Read more from Basil Thomson

    Related to Odd People

    Related ebooks

    Espionage For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Style & Technique Of BEN MACINTYRE

      Mar 5, 2020

      ‘If you’re looking for a good spy thriller, I definitely recommend this,’ said a review in the Daily Express. The book was not an invented spy yarn, but a true story – Agent Zigzag. Fact can be stranger than fiction. Ben Macintyre, historian and Time

      6 min read

    • Article

      ‘CSI’ In 1920? ‘American Sherlock’ Tracks A Pioneer In Forensics

      Feb 19, 2020

      Kate Winkler Dawson follows the career of Edward Oscar Heinrich, who nudged criminal investigations beyond hunches toward a more scientific approach.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Flashback

      Nov 7, 2017

      Flashback
      1 min read

    • Article

      Story Of A Street

      Oct 9, 2021

      Story Of A Street
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Propagandists

      Aug 7, 2018

      The Propagandists
      8 min read

    • Article

      Company Men

      Feb 21, 2023

      Company Men
      2 min read

    • Article

      Diana Rigg

      Nov 11, 2020

      Diana Rigg
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Misunderstood Queen

      Aug 3, 2022

      The Misunderstood Queen
      5 min read

    • Article

      TV, FILM & RADIO

      May 11, 2023

      TV, FILM & RADIO
      5 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      Oct 8, 2020

      Reviews
      6 min read

    • Article

      Sherlock Holmes Plays The White Man

      Nov 25, 2021

      I saw the smoke banks on that October evening swirl slowly up over the Atlantic swell, and rise, and rise, until they had shredded into thinnest air, and lost themselves in the infinite blue of heaven. And with them rose the cloud which had hung over

      11 min read

    • Article

      Passed-by Spies

      Apr 28, 2022

      Passed-by Spies
      3 min read

    • Article

      A Forgotten British Great: Smelfungus

      Jul 27, 2023

      SATIRISED AS “SMELFUNGUS” by Laurence Sterne in A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768), the first great Scottish writer of the Union, Tobias Smollett (1721-71), is now largely forgotten. Unlike Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, Smollett’s pi

      7 min read

    • Article

      The King Of Westminster

      May 24, 2023

      The King Of Westminster
      5 min read

    • Article

      History

      Jun 29, 2022

      History
      11 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Nov 24, 2022

      In November’s Letters, Jenny Martin requested a feature on Queen Margaret of Scotland (c1045–93). However, the Saxon Princess Margaret of Wessex – as she was also known – is not all she seems. Rightly revered as a saint, her legacy was, though, not a

      4 min read

    • Article

      An Enlightenment King Vindicated

      Nov 25, 2021

      THIS OUTSTANDING NEW BIOGRAPHY of George III is timely. The first of the Hanoverians to identify as British was mocked, slandered and vilified during his lifetime and is still regularly cited in the American media as the epitome of tyranny. Over the

      5 min read

    • Article

      History

      Apr 3, 2024

      Viking, 464pp, £20 In this follow-up to his 2021 bestseller Empireland, wrote Andrew Marr in the Times, Sanghera ‘tries to understand why the modern British display such amnesia about their forebears’ vast, world-changing project.’ Although the book

      11 min read

    • Article

      They Made History

      Jul 13, 2022

      They Made History
      8 min read

    • Article

      Dark City

      Jun 13, 2019

      Dark City
      1 min read

    • Article

      Brighton Hell

      May 3, 2023

      Brighton Hell
      3 min read

    • Article

      Behind Palace Doors

      Dec 21, 2023

      Behind Palace Doors
      5 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Apr 16, 2020

      If the interview with Simon Jenkins in your March issue (A Welsh Tragedy?) is anything to go by, I suspect his recent Radio 4 documentary – controversially entitled Wales: A Twentieth-Century Tragedy? – was largely based on flimsy anecdotal evidence.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Brum Beat

      Dec 28, 2022

      What made you want to write this book? Ultimately, I was inspired by the detective fiction of the 1930s. I wanted to get under the skin of these remarkable novels and use the genre to explore the darkness of the period. How did you research England d

      1 min read

    • Article

      Books & co

      Jun 10, 2022

      by Bernard O’Connor Nearly 40 female agents were sent out by the French section of Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. The youngest was 19 and the oldest 53. Most were trained in paramilitary warfare, fieldcraft

      4 min read

    Reviews for Odd People

    4/5

    2 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      There are some interesting stories, but they aren't being told very well.