The Crown & THE CHURCHILL FUNERAL PLOT

I’VE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD to season three of THE CROWN on Netflix for quite some time, but I did wonder if the change in the casting of major characters would work.

Karen and I watched the first episode of the new season last evening and all of my “concerns” about watching someone new in the lead role as the Queen vanished.

Olivia Colman brilliantly picks up where Claire Foy left off.

The new season begins in 1964––a fascinating time in Great Britain. Political change is in the air, a move to the left as Winston Churchill withers away.

And there is a hint of espionage involving politicians and even the royal household.

Being a student of that era, and having written about it in great detail in my books, I watched for historical inaccuracies and more than annoyed my wife with my running commentary.

The series is well done.

Speaking about my books, though it is certainly self-serving, I do very much believe THE CHURCHILL FUNERAL PLOT would be a great companion to this new season for THE CROWN.

If you haven’t yet read it––it might be worth checking out. I enjoyed researching and writing it a couple of years ago.

Here are the links:

Print Version

E-books:

Amazon Kindle Version
Nook (Barnes & Noble)
Apple Books

The Cambridges Spies are Back in the News with Release of Diplomat’s Secret Diaries

Guy Liddell was the deputy director general of MI-5 (sort of like their FBI, with MI-6 being more like CIA, domestic vs. international work—but much more overlap over there) in Great Britain in 1951.

He was also a very good friend to several men who, though also working for the British government–though they actually Soviet spies. It was quite the scandal more than 60 years ago–and it’s all in the news again.

Names like Guy Burgess, Donald MacLean, Anthony Blunt, and especially, Harold Adrian Russell “Kim” Philby, are familiar to anyone interested in the history of espionage in the Cold War. Their stories read like spy novels—but, in fact, this stuff is all too true.

Kim Philby

[Note: I have dealt with these “Cambridge Spies,” along with a lesser known ring of spies at Oxford in my novel, CAMELOT’S COUSIN.]

Guy Liddell was their friend and started figuring things out way too late. Recently his personal diaries were released to the National Archives over there (Kew, in West London) and they are quite revealing:

Spies investigator ‘shared his secrets with Russians’

The man investigating the defection of two of the notorious “Cambridge spies” was unwittingly confiding in members of the same group of Soviet double agents, newly released records reveal.
The personal diaries of Guy Liddell, deputy director general of MI5, have been released to the National Archives in Kew, west London.
They describe the moment when security services realised Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean had fled to the Soviet Union in May 1951.
[To read the complete story in Cambridge University News, CLICK HERE]