The master of espionage fiction offers a memoir of sorts, a series of meticulously crafted, witty and enthralling “stories from my life”. He describes the childhood deceptions and losses that launched him, his schooling in Switzerland, where he made his first “infant steps for British Intelligence, delivering I knew not what to I knew not whom.” He covers the transformative publication of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, and the research trips and encounters (Yassar Arafat, war correspondent David Greenway, Alec Guinness, among others) that led to the memorable characters in the novels that followed. Near the end of the book he addresses Ronnie – “con-man, fantasist, occasional jailbird, and my father” – the character he most wanted to get to grips with ever since the beginnings of his life as a writer. (Credit: Viking)