The Human Factor

Before I started writing my first spy novel, I came across a hardback second-hand copy of The Human Factor in an antique store. On the inside flap, Greene wrote about wanting to write about spies with pensions. The phrase stuck with me.

Greene’s spy lives in a suburban house and commutes to work like any of his neighbours but he is a traitor with his own dark secrets. What an intriguing idea. Greene himself was a spy during WW2 and a friend of one of the greatest traitors in British history – Kim Philby.

Describing any book as the best of its kind is controversial but few writers in any genre can match one of the true literary giants of the 20th century. Greene worked for MI6 in West Africa during the Second World War before coming back to England where he worked alongside Kim Philby countering German spies based in Portugal and Spain. Elements of his sympathy for Philby, a KGB agent at the heart of MI6, are evident in The Human Factor, where MI6 officer Maurice Castle finds himself embroiled in an investigation into leaks to the KGB from… show more.