A Taste for Treason: The Letter That Smashed a Nazi Spy Ring
By (Author) Andrew Jeffrey
Birlinn General
Birlinn Ltd
1st February 2023
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
Espionage and secret services
History
Second World War
European history
940.548641
Paperback
288
Width 155mm, Height 230mm, Spine 20mm
379g
A gripping true story of wartime espionage.
Dundee, 1937. When housewife Mary Curran became suspicious of hairdresser Jessie Jordan's frequent trips to Nazi Germany, she had no idea that she was about to be drawn into an international web of espionage. Thanks to a tip off from Mary, MI5 and the FBI launched major spy hunts on both sides of the Atlantic.
This is the true story of a decade-long series of Nazi espionage plots in Britain, Europe and the United States. It shows how a Nazi spy's letter, posted in New York and intercepted in Scotland, broke spy rings across Europe and North America. And it reveals, for the first time, how that letter marked the genesis of an intelligence and security alliance that today includes the United States, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
'Fascinating, gripping and expertly researched... an extraordinary true tale of espionage told with all the drama and panache of a spy thriller' Michael Smith, bestselling author ofThe Secrets of Station X
'Andrew Jeffrey...investigates Jordans multi-faceted role in one of the biggest espionage networks ever assembled across different continents'
-- Neil Drysdale * Dundee Courier *'A Taste for Treason... is a superbly-researched and grippingly-written account of the efforts of Nazi Germany's spymasters to gather intelligence on Britain, France, the USA and elsewhere in the years leading up to World War Two and the early part of the war itself'
-- Ken Lussey * Undiscovered Scotland *'Lays the case out in some tremendous detail'
-- Justin Black * Spycraft 101 Podcast *'A Taste for Treason doesn't disappoint in delivering high-stakes tension layered with researched facts rather than fiction'
-- Megan Amato * Scottish Field *'Scottish historian Andrew Jeffrey presents new details of German espionage plots in the UK in the decade before war broke out in Europe in 1939
-- Jeremy Watson * The Times *A remarkable true story
* Scots Magazine *Dr Andrew Jeffrey has written extensively on military and maritime history. He authored a trilogy of books on Scotlands role in the Second World War: This Dangerous Menace, This Present Emergency and This Time of Crisis. Media work includes research and on-air contributions for The Thistle, The Crown and The Swastika (BBC 1995), Salvage Squad (Channel 4 2001), Timeframe (SMG 2004), a BBC educational project on the Second World War (BBC 2010), the Dutch documentary The O-13 Mystery Still on Patrol (Wing TV 2013) and the French documentary Submarines against the Nazis (ZED for RMC Dcouverte 2019).