Enemies Within

Reviews

‘Richard Davenport-Hines, in his fascinating and compendious new book … challenges prevailing interpretations and provides answers to all the major questions about spies… As a result, this book manages to be both nostalgic and politically progressive when it seeks to remind us, passionately and eloquently, of the value of trust’ Guardian ‘Davenport-Hines writes persuasively … Enemies Within provides a comprehensive demolition of many widely accepted myths surrounding communist subterfuge during the Cold War … it is encouraging to come across such an erudite and unapologetically ‘elitist’ counterblast’ Spectator ‘A supremely accomplished historian … he writes with mordant wit and a merciless eye for distortions … the great virtues of this book lie in the detail Davenport-Hines amasses and his sense of context’ Sunday Times ‘He is strong on retelling the spy stories … but the chief virtue of the book is the almost revisionist judgments he feels able to make based on his research … in this rich, detailed and entertainingly irascible book’ Book of the Week, The Times ‘The product of one of our greatest modern masters of non-fiction Richard Davenport-Hines, Enemies Within is an exhaustive … chronicle of spies in Britain … a mosaic of such vivid detail’ Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday ‘There could not be a more experienced interrogator of a subject so festooned with myths of sleaze, power and treachery … Enemies Within is a peculiar and fascinating hybrid’ Observer ‘Richard Davenport-Hines dissects and destroys … conventional wisdom in his masterly retelling of Britain’s most notorious intelligence disaster … makes his case with splenetic zeal, backed by a formidable array of sources … fascinating’ Economist ‘The history of the five Cambridge spies recounted in this book with Richard Davenport-Hines’s usual vim and brio … a vivid panorama … [he] bases his case on wide research and illustrates it with a wealth of piquant anecdote’ Literary Review Expand reviews