Spy Novelists

To the Editors:

A small correction to “Back from the Cold” by Christian Caryl [NYR, November 23]. John Bingham was not Sir John Bingham, but John Bingham 7th Baron Clanmorris of Newbrook, Mayo, whose ancestors included the winner of a VC at the Battle of Jutland. He was an MI5 spy but not the head of MI5. If it had been Bingham himself that had said that he had tried his hand at novel-writing it would have been put down as typically English understatement. In fact, he published seventeen thrillers, detective stories, and spy novels, two of which were subsequently filmed. Before joining MI5 he was art editor of the Sunday Dispatch. Le Carré has said that it was the success of Bingham’s novels that encouraged him to write his first novels. Incidentally, Bingham’s wife was a playwright, and his daughter Charlotte is a very successful romantic novelist and scriptwriter.

Alan Suckling, QC
Norwich, England