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Charles Cumming | |
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| Born | 1971 (age 52–53) Ayr, Scotland |
| Education | Eton College University of Edinburgh |
| Occupation(s) | Novelist and Screenwriter |
| Spouse | Harriette Peel |
| Children | 3 |
| Website | www.charlescumming.co.uk |
Charles Cumming (born 1971) is a British writer of spy fiction and a screenwriter.
Cumming was born in 1971, [1] in Ayr, Scotland, the son of Ian Cumming (b. 1938) and Caroline Pilkington (b. 1943).
He was educated at Ludgrove School (1979–1984), Eton College (1985–1989) and the University of Edinburgh (1990–1994), where he earned a first class honours degree in English Literature. [1]
In 1995, Cumming was approached for recruitment by the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) but did not go on to work for them. [2]
Cumming's first novel, A Spy by Nature, was published in the UK in June 2001. The novel's hero, Alec Milius, is a flawed loner in his early 20s who is instructed by MI5 to sell doctored research data on oil exploration in the Caspian Sea to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
In August 2001, Cumming moved to Madrid. [1] His second novel, The Hidden Man (2003), tells the story of two brothers investigating the murder of their father, a former SIS officer, at the hands of the Russian mafia. The Hidden Man also examines the clandestine role played by SIS and the CIA during the Soviet–Afghan War.
His third novel, The Spanish Game (2006), marks the return of anti-hero Alec Milius, who becomes involved in a plot by the paramilitary Basque nationalist organization ETA to bring down the Spanish government. The Spanish Game was described by The Times as one of the six finest spy novels of all time, alongside Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy , Funeral in Berlin and The Scarlet Pimpernel .[ citation needed ]
Typhoon, published in the UK in 2008, is a political thriller about a CIA plot to destabilise China on the eve of the Beijing Olympics. The story spans the decade from the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997 to present-day Shanghai. In particular, the author highlights the plight of the Uyghur Muslim population in Xinjiang, a semi-autonomous region of China. The novelist William Boyd described Typhoon as "a wholly compelling and sophisticated spy novel – vivid and disturbing – immaculately researched and full of harrowing contemporary relevance." Typhoon was listed by The New York Times as one of the 100 Notable Books of 2009.
Cumming's fifth novel, The Trinity Six , a thriller about the discovery of a sixth member of the Cambridge spies ring, was published in 2011. The Washington Post named The Trinity Six as one of the Notable Books of 2011.
A Foreign Country, his sixth novel, concerning the disappearance of the first female Chief of MI6, was published in 2012. It is the first in a trilogy of novels about disgraced MI6 officer Thomas Kell. The novel is being developed into a television series by Bluegrass Films. A Foreign Country was named the first Scottish Crime Book of the Year at the inaugural Bloody Scotland Festival in Stirling in September 2012. It won the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for the best thriller of 2012. [3]
A sequel, entitled A Colder War, in which Kell investigates a traitor inside western intelligence, was published in 2014. The novel won the CrimeFest eDunnit Award for Best Crime eBook of the Year. [4] [5]
The third novel in the Thomas Kell series, A Divided Spy, was published in 2016.
Cumming's ninth novel, The Man Between, was published in 2018. Released in the United States as The Moroccan Girl, it tells the story of a writer who agrees to spy for MI6 while attending a literary festival in Morocco. This was followed up in 2020 by BOX88, a thriller set in both the present day and in 1989. The protagonist, Lachlan Kite, is recruited into a top secret UK and US intelligence network while attending Alford, a fictional public school modelled on Eton College. A sequel, JUDAS62 was published in the UK in 2021. Now a university student, Kite is sent to the Russian city of Voronezh in 1993 to extract a chemical weapons scientist. In the present day he mounts an operation against the FSB in Dubai.
Cumming's novels have been translated into fourteen languages. His work is published in the United Kingdom by HarperCollins, in the United States by Mysterious Press and in Spain by Salamandra.
In 2015, Cumming sold an original screenplay, The Plane, to DiBonaventura Pictures. The film was released by Lionsgate as Plane in 2023 starring Gerard Butler and Mike Colter. It was directed by Jean-Francois Richet.
Cumming was also an assistant editor of The Week from 1996 to 2013.
Cumming lives in west London. [6] He is married and has three children.
He is one of the trustees of The Pierce Loughran Memorial Scholarship fund, which provides tuition fees for the Yeats Summer School in Sligo, Ireland. He is also the founder and President of the José Raúl Capablanca Memorial Chess Society. [7]
Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligence agencies. It was given new impetus by the development of fascism and communism in the lead-up to World War II, continued to develop during the Cold War, and received a fresh impetus from the emergence of rogue states, international criminal organizations, global terrorist networks, maritime piracy and technological sabotage and espionage as potent threats to Western societies. As a genre, spy fiction is thematically related to the novel of adventure, the thriller and the politico-military thriller.
The Security Service, also known as MI5, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), and Defence Intelligence (DI). MI5 is directed by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), and the service is bound by the Security Service Act 1989. The service is directed to protect British parliamentary democracy and economic interests and to counter terrorism and espionage within the United Kingdom (UK).
David John Moore Cornwell, better known by his pen name John le Carré, was an English author, best known for his espionage novels, many of which were successfully adapted for film or television. A "sophisticated, morally ambiguous writer", he is considered one of the greatest novelists of the postwar era. During the 1950s and 1960s, he worked for both the Security Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). Near the end of his life, due to his strong disapproval of Brexit, he took out Irish citizenship, which was possible due to his having an Irish grandparent.
Captain Sir Mansfield George Smith-Cumming was a British naval officer who served as the first chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS).
Frederick McCarthy Forsyth is an English novelist and journalist. He is best known for thrillers such as The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Fourth Protocol, The Dogs of War, The Devil's Alternative, The Fist of God, Icon, The Veteran, Avenger, The Afghan, The Cobra and The Kill List. Forsyth's works frequently appear on best-sellers lists and more than a dozen of his titles have been adapted to film. By 2006, he had sold more than 70 million books in more than 30 languages.
Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky, CMG is a former colonel of the KGB who became KGB resident-designate (rezident) and bureau chief in London. He was a double agent, providing information to the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1974 to 1985. After being recalled to Moscow under suspicion, he was exfiltrated from the Soviet Union in July 1985 under a plan code-named Operation Pimlico. The Soviet Union subsequently sentenced him to death in absentia.
Rupert William Simon Allason is a British former Conservative Party politician and author. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Torbay in Devon, from 1987 to 1997. He writes books and articles on the subject of espionage under the pen name Nigel West.
George Smiley OBE is a fictional character created by John le Carré. Smiley is a career intelligence officer with "The Circus", the British overseas intelligence agency. He is a central character in the novels Call for the Dead, A Murder of Quality, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, and Smiley's People, and a supporting character in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The Looking Glass War, The Secret Pilgrim and A Legacy of Spies. The character has also appeared in a number of film, television, and radio adaptations of le Carré's books.
Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky, codenamed Hero and Yoga was a Soviet military intelligence (GRU) colonel during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Penkovsky informed the United States and the United Kingdom about Soviet military secrets, including the appearance and footprint of Soviet intermediate-range ballistic missile installations and the weakness of the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile program. This information was decisive in allowing the US to recognize that the Soviets were placing missiles in Cuba before most of them were operational. It also gave US President John F. Kennedy, during the Cuban Missile Crisis that followed, valuable information about Soviet weakness that allowed him to face down Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and resolve the crisis without a nuclear war.
John Murray is a Scottish publisher, known for the authors it has published in its long history including Jane Austen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Byron, Charles Lyell, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herman Melville, Edward Whymper, Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, and Charles Darwin. Since 2004, it has been owned by conglomerate Lagardère under the Hachette UK brand.
Firefox is a thriller novel written by Craig Thomas and published in 1977. The Cold War plot involves an attempt by the CIA and MI6 to steal a highly advanced experimental Soviet fighter aircraft. The chief protagonist is fighter pilot turned spy Mitchell Gant. The book was subject to a 1982 film adaptation produced and directed by Clint Eastwood who also played the role of Gant in the film.
Major General Sir Vernon George Waldegrave Kell, was a British Army general and the founder and first Director of the British Security Service, otherwise known as MI5. Known as K, he was described in Who's Who as "Commandant, War Department Constabulary".
The Crime Writers' Association (CWA) is a specialist authors' organisation in the United Kingdom, most notable for its "Dagger" awards for the best crime writing of the year, and the Diamond Dagger awarded to an author for lifetime achievement. The Association also promotes crime writing of fiction and non-fiction by holding annual competitions, publicising literary festivals and establishing links with libraries, booksellers and other writer organisations, both in the UK such as the Society of Authors, and overseas. The CWA enables members to network at its annual conference and through its regional chapters as well as through dedicated social media channels and private website. Members' events and general news items are published on the CWA website, which also features Find An Author, where CWA members are listed and information provided about themselves, their books and their awards.
Gordon Thomas was a British investigative journalist and author, notably on topics of secret intelligence. Thomas was the author of 53 books published worldwide including The Pope's Jews, Secret Wars, and Gideon's Spies, with sales exceeding 45 million copies. Thomas got the scoop on the nationalisation of the Suez Canal for the Daily Express in 1956. He was a cousin of the poet Dylan Thomas.
The chief of the Secret Intelligence Service serves as the head of the Secret Intelligence Service, which is part of the United Kingdom intelligence community. The chief is appointed by the foreign secretary, to whom they report directly. Annual reports are also made to the prime minister.
Roslund & Hellström were a Swedish duo of crime fiction writers composed of journalist Anders Roslund and activist and author Börge Hellström (1957–2017). They were full-time writers from 2004 to Hellström's death in 2017.
Alexander Joseph Patrick Wilson was an English writer, spy and MI6 officer. He wrote under the names Alexander Wilson, Geoffrey Spencer, Gregory Wilson, and Michael Chesney. After his death, his family discovered that he had been a serial polygamist who had lied to many people. As of 2018, documents that could shed light on his activities remain classified as "sensitive" by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, under section 3(4) of the Public Records Act 1958. The effect of his deceptions on his wives and descendants were dramatised in the 2018 BBC miniseries Mrs Wilson, in which his granddaughter, actress Ruth Wilson, portrayed her grandmother, Alison.
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6, is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligence on foreign nationals in support of its Five Eyes partners. SIS is one of the British intelligence agencies and the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service ("C") is directly accountable to the Foreign Secretary.
The Trinity Six is a 2011 thriller novel by Charles Cumming.
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