NOC - Non-Official Cover: British Secret Operations

The NOC Trilogy #1

by Nicholas Anderson

"WE WERE INSTITUTIONAL KILLERS in disruptive actions on the black, that is to say we made illegal entries across borders to perform dirty work, then returned home mostly without the knowledge or connection to the local British embassy's staff assigned to other covert affairs. The main job description was called deep cover within SIS, though the U.S.-led NATO preferred NOC or non-official cover - either description was undeclared. I served in various divisions in charge of different continents, often living like a mole…"

388 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2009

Reviews

[Brian Macleod · Rating 5 out of 5]

This first book of the Nicholas Anderson NOC series is a great read.

I've always been fascinated by the murky world of espionage and the resulting politics. Reading these faction books is immensely satisfying. So much so, that I have read this book at least 3 times.

Highly recommended.

[Andrew Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicholas Anderson’s book ‘NOC Non-Official Cover: British Secret Operations’ would make a most remarkable achievement of fiction — a protagonist who is a former MI6 officer and, latterly, a “freelance” British agent with a licence to kill, whose conscience about working for an organisation believing themselves to be “above the law” leads him to reveal the nefarious deeds he committed in the name of national security — except that the enigmatic author claims every word is the God’s honest truth and that he himself is the agent in question. Like paprika in a well-seasoned goulash, the ambiguity is what gives this exceptional book its added spice and lifts it head and shoulders above the normal run-of-the-mill spy yarn.
Anderson (presented as a pseudonym, like the majority of names in the book) tells us in the first few paragraphs about his signing of the Official Secrets Act, which forbids all employees of The Secret Intelligence Agency of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland of ever talking or writing about their work. This necessitates his choice of presentation of his memoir as “informed fiction.” Anderson’s frustration at having to adopt this ruse is obvious in his, somewhat defensive, introduction. But is this a double bluff? When he throws out the challenge to investigative journalists “… to closely follow my story: They will see the truth emerge…” is he merely piling on the mystery to tantalise us?
As one progresses through the text — resisting the temptation to run to Google every other paragraph to check on Anderson’s facts — we soon realize it doesn’t matter a damn if this is a true story or not. What matters is it’s an intriguing and informed narrative that grabs the reader and pulls them along for a fascinating, insightful and sometimes philosophical glimpse into a world of which few of us are even aware, but that is totally credible by virtue of Anderson’s exceptional writing skills. There are tense and hugely entertaining scenes. Characters are finely drawn. Anderson’s own personality and character is gradually revealed as a fully rounded, sympathetic individual with definite opinions, with which the reader might not agree but can’t help but concede have been formed by experience that is extreme and rare.
As Anderson writes: “In the end there’s not a lot of difference between history and fiction because the former has been written with the latter in mind.” By book’s end we know this for a fact because we’ve been taken beyond mind-boggling events to a greater understanding of their underlying significance, regardless of their veracity. Like all good books, fiction and non-fiction, we emerge from Anderson’s pages with a world empathy we may not have had before we started. An awesome (in the true sense of the word) read for more than just the cloak-and-dagger spy book fan.

[Gary · Rating 1 out of 5]

As another reviewer noted, I have mixed emotions about this book, but, what I *am* clear about is that, unfortunately, it is one of the worst books I've read in a while. I am compelled to complete any book that I start and so slogged through this on my daily commute, keenly watching the percentage complete on my Kindle, looking forward to finishing it. The book has numerous flaws, one of the most obvious being that it desperately needed a good editor; it was full of typos, missing words and poor punctuation. It purports to be a true memoir necessarily presented as a novel to circumvent the UK's Official Secrets Act (itself deplorable if true) and yet despite the author's obvious knowledge of the UK's espionage machinery, for me at least, it was too far fetched to seem plausible. The writing style was disjointed and jumped from one timeframe to another, it lacked a narrative thread to tie it together, constantly "broke the reader's flow" with explanations of every acronym and (sometimes incorrect) translations of foreign text. Lastly the book is riddled with pseudo intellectual and sometimes paranoid sounding digressions about everything from the Illuminati to karmic destiny. Not recommended - if you're interested in reading first hand accounts of covert operations, there is a great variety of far better books available.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cool stories, but things start to drag on after a certain point.