The man who was M: The life of Maxwell Knight

by Anthony Masters

"A fascinating study of a prominent M.I.5 officer and of how his private character affected his judgement -- not always for the good" -- Graham Greene When Maxwell Knight died in 1968, millions knew him as a well-loved British rado and television naturalist. Few, if any, were aware that this avuncular man with a brilliant rapport with animals had been one of the most important and mysterious figures in M.I.5. Maxwell Knight was a student of the occult, cricketer, jazz-musician and naturalist. He was also a spy-master -- and Ian Fleming's model for 'M", James Bond's shadowy boss. In the late 1930's he gathered round him an elite group of young case-officers in Department B5(b) -- M.I.5's most secret outpost. Known as Knight's Black Agents, these men and women made a crucial contribution to Britain's readiness for the Second World War. Knight's responsibility was counter-subversion. He planted agents in the Communist Party of Great Britain, the British Union of Fascists and other pre-war extremist groups. He exposed the Communist-inspired Woolwich Arsenal Spy Ring in 1938, interned Oswald Mosley, the British Fascist leader, in 1940 and in the same year uncovered a Nazi plot to prevent America's entry into the war. His private life was a his first wife committed suicide and the two subsequent marriages were strained. Anthony Masters has tracked down and interviewed Knight's surviving case-officers and agents, now scattered all over the world -- some still in hiding. Together they have been able to piece together the fascinating story of an extraordinary man.

Genres: Biography

212 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Anthony Masters was a writer, educator and humanitarian of exceptional gifts and prodigious energy. He was, in the parlance of his spiritual ancestors, the ancient mariners, that rare voyager "as gracious as a trade wind and as dependable as an anchor".

He leaves 11 works of adult fiction – notably, Conquering Heroes (1969), Red Ice (1986, with Nicholas Barker), The Men (1997), The Good and Faithful Servant (1999) and Lifers (2001) – and was in the process of completing another, Dark Bridges, which he thought would be his best. Many of these works carry deep insights into social problems that he gained, over four decades, by helping the socially excluded, be it by running soup kitchens for drug addicts or by campaigning for the civic rights of gypsies and other ethnic minorities.

His non-fiction output was typically eclectic. It ranged from the biographies of such diverse personalities as Hannah Senesh (The Summer that Bled, 1972), Mikhail Bakunin (Bakunin: the father of anarchism, 1974), Nancy Astor (Nancy Astor: a life, 1981) and the British secret service chief immortalised by Ian Fleming in his James Bond books (The Man Who Was M: the life of Maxwell Knight, 1984), to a history of the notorious asylum Bedlam (Bedlam, 1977).

Reviews

[Barry Medlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read.

[Yen-Yi Juo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been led to this book by a chapter in Vesper Flight, called "A Cuckoo In the House." I was fascinated by this mysterious MI5 spymaster, who is also a naturalist and a closeted gay man in the early 20th Century. The stories in this book did not disappoint, but the problem is the writing. Perhaps I'm used to reading non-fictions which dramatize actions and cater to a "general public" readership, with no knowledge of historical context. This book is not for the casual reader because the author would bring up one after another completely unfamiliar name (for the early 21th century reader) as if they are well-known characters. Perhaps they were celebrities or newsworthy characters before the second World War, but most of these "well-known" politicians, spies, writers... have been forgotten one hundred years later. What remains is a string of strangers who devoted their lives to pursuing transient political interests, which, in hindsight, did not seem to matter very much. I'm particularly interested in the character of Maxwell Knight. While this book does describe some of the highlights of his spying career, there is a dearth of personal description and I came away still having a hard time picturing him as a real person. After finishing the book, I wonder if perhaps this might've been a better book, if the writer wrote about his quest to find these spies from long ago, who have become unfulfilled housewives and drunks in distant corners of English, America and Canada. It seems like that would've been a more compelling read.

[Beth · Rating 1 out of 5]

Found this listed in the bibliography of Atkinson's "Transcription". I could see its use as source material but, honestly, I felt that the novel did a better job of conveying the history. My problem with this book is that there are too many names, often unintroduced, so I was constantly scanning back to figure out who the author was talking about but the reference would often be to a witness or a journalist that didn't really figure into the story. Then, when he got to something "juicy", he'd give it a brief mention (e.g. regarding the capture of Rudolph Hess: "The details of his subsequent flight and capture are well known."). Very frustrating.
In hindsight, I would have done better to get separate books on the larger cases that Knight was known for: The Woolwich Arsenal Spy Ring, the capture of Rudolph Hess, and the Tyler Kent case. I'm sure that there were other highlights that I just didn't pick out. This book is like a flower garden overrun with flowering weeds.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was curious because I enjoy James Bond. Knight seemed an unpleasant man and certainly intelligence gathering was haphazard.

[Linley Stringer]

Love!!!