The Private Life of Spies

During WW2 there was a rumour that German spies were landing by parachute in Britain, dressed as nuns...

''Spy-masterful storytelling'' Sunday Post

''Delightfully old-fashioned and prudent of prose, McCall Smith unspools his tales'' Daily Mail

''[Adds] another treasure to McCall Smith''s already glittering library'' New York Journal of Books


Conradin Muller was an unusual spy. He was recruited in Hamburg in June 1943, much against his will, and sent on his first, and only, mission in late September that year. He failed to send a single report back to Germany, and when the War came to an end in May 1945, he fell to his knees and wept with relief.

From a highly reluctant German spy who is drawn to an East Anglian nunnery as his only means of escape, to the strange tale of one of the Cambridge spy ring''s adventures with a Russian dwarf, these are Alexander McCall Smith''s intriguing