John Mordred

Out of the blue, your sister gets kidnapped in one of the world's worst war-zones. As a top British intelligence officer, everyone agrees you're the ideal person to mount a rescue, only protocol forbids it. So you resign. Your name is John Mordred, the country is Libya, and what happens next is uncertain. All you know is, there are as many good as bad people in this world, alliances for justice – no matter how improbable – are always possible, and you never let terrorists come between you and your family.

John Mordred knows exactly what to make of "fake news", and how seriously to take it. It's just a trendy name for one of politics' oldest gimmicks. Take its latest incarnation. Can it really be that a few maverick intelligence agents from Russia and the United States are fighting a discreet battle-to-the-death on some of London's back streets? And, that the corpses are piling up, out of sight of the British police? And, even that the whole, thing could spiral at any moment into God knows what version of World War Three? Some chance. But, think again, John. The first two times the boy cried wolf were fake news. The third was a catastrophe. For everyone. One in three. Not great odds. But, given all the disinformation out there, it could be even worse. Can't anyone trust to good old-fashioned chance nowadays?

After a chance skirmish with an armed killer in central London, agent John Mordred ends up in hospital, condition critical. Six weeks and a full recovery later, he's persuaded it's purely a police matter, so one he should forget about. But, nothing in MI7 is ever that simple. There's more, to this particular incident than meets the eye and unnamed people in high places want it investigating. They believe Mordred is the man for the job. Add to the mix five missing IMF officials, the kidnapping of a top British financier in Venezuela, evidence of a related cover-up in Whitehall, a young and unpredictable London Lord Mayor with acute delusions of grandeur, plus, most bizarrely, persistent rumors of local UFO sightings, and things threaten to spin radically out of control. Suddenly Mordred's life is on the line again. This time, alongside those of innumerable others.

Agent John Mordred gets a nasty shock when he finds himself touted in the press as one of ten potential "Ultimate Londoners". Especially given that he's spent his entire adult life trying to pass beneath the radar of just about anyone with a camera or a microphone. Yet with a five million pound first prize at stake, plus an awards ceremony on the top floor of The Gherkin, it's clearly no joke. MI7 looks into it as a matter of urgency, and things go from strange to stranger. For a start, no one in the mainstream media or elsewhere has the faintest idea where it originated. And not even the 'candidates' themselves know how they were selected. For Mordred, the unsolicited exposure is profoundly unwelcome. But maybe that's the whole idea. So far, so irritating. And inconvenient. Then the candidates start dying. As Mordred investigates, the truth slowly emerges. And it's weirder and more deadly than anyone could possibly have imagined. The Ultimate Londoner. Who will you vote for?

When John Mordred leaves MI7, marries the woman he loves, and settles down to a relatively humdrum lifestyle, it ought to be a brave new start. But he and his wife have formerly been top-level spies, and they find the readjustment harder than they anticipated.When - courtesy of a friend, and apparently out of the blue - they're offered an all-expenses-paid holiday in Malta, it seems the answer to both their prayers. Sunshine, relaxation and romance. Just what the doctor ordered.But Malta's no ordinary tourist-trap. Hidden cameras, none-too-subtle intimations of blackmail, and the murder of a professional acquaintance send them reeling back to Britain; back to what they dearly hope will be a snug 9 to 5 normality.But there's a limit to how often they can walk away. Especially when any number of foreign intelligence agencies now have hostile eyes on them. They were once two of Britain's best assets; they're currently untethered from central control; they're fair game.And actually, come to think if it, this is an excellent time to put an assassin on their tail. Get rid of them both, once and for all.

2019. Russia's Web Brigades have created a divided West, but both the European and the American intelligence services are getting wise to their tactics. When Stanislav Kuznetsov, the FSB's Director of Overseas Strategic Affairs, entrusts a group of young idealists with the task of devising the next phase in the disruption of Russia's enemies, little does he suspect that six weeks later, they'll come up with a plan to suborn the British Broadcasting Corporation. His first reaction is mingled incredulity and exasperation. Have they taken leave of their senses?But then he studies the details. And actually, it's not as far-fetched as it looks. In fact it's entirely workable. It might even be worth passing off as his own idea.Which, technically speaking, is intellectual property theft, and certain to offend the hard-working members of his young focus group. One night, by way of showing how angry they are, they all disappear from Moscow simultaneously.Which is bad enough. But what makes it far worse is that there's evidence to suggest they're intent on contacting a British MI7 agent called John Mordred.Talk about getting their revenge. This could be the crisis to end all crises. Heads will definitely roll.Only, whose?

When Ruby Parker, Head of MI7's Red Department, is hospitalised by a burglar, all is not as it seems. Her removal coincides with a series of catastrophes for British spies in hostile territories abroad, and some very shifty behaviour by the new Acting Head of Red Department, Patrick Atherton. Atherton dislikes Red's established hierarchy, which includes all its officers without exception, and possibly John Mordred in particular.The idea that there's something fishy going on, and that all this is linked, seems intuitively obvious, and probably worth investigating.But then things take a turn for the strange. Atherton has an apparent breakdown; he gets up from his desk, leaves Thames House and apparently goes off radar. Important men and women across London start dying in violent circumstances. It simultaneously transpires that the mysterious Black Department is taking a close interest in all this. And not quite from its usual distance.Suddenly, John Mordred himself becomes the focus of intensely hostile scrutiny. And when he, too, goes off radar, it's because he no longer has a choice. At least, not if he wants to live.For a while, nothing seems to make sense.Then, shockingly, it does.

It's early 2020. MI7 is expecting an eccentric new recruit in the person of Chasha Jones, self-described (only partly tongue-in-cheek) as "the most intelligent woman in London." Perceptive, cerebral, fun to work alongside, everyone looks forward to her arrival. But on the day she's due to start work, there's no sign of her. Nor the day after. Then shockingly, it turns out she's joined an obscure cult run by an eccentric Briton called Hector Raynebow. Raynebow used to be a dedicated eco-warrior, but he's ditched environmentalism on the grounds that humanity, in its present form, isn't really capable of saving the world: the rot has gone too far. But don't worry, he has a solution: Humankind 2.0, a new type of human being, developed by means of cutting-edge gene technology. The trouble is, when more than a few governments encounter the words, "a new type of human being", what they actually hear is "super-soldiers". And their only question then is, assuming Raynebow really is capable of developing such things, who's going to get their hands on them first? John Mordred is assigned to investigate. But of course, he's not the only one. And to make things even cosier, the investigators are explicitly briefed not to get on with each other.

The last instalment in the Tales of MI7 series! Ruby's Parker's retirement hangs like a dark cloud over MI7. She herself has only a vague idea what the future might hold — both personally, and in terms of national security. But for many of her team, she's irreplaceable. To cap it all, there's a massive organisational overhaul on the cards at Thames House. Everyone's nervous, and with good reason. In the middle of all this uncertainty, there's an assassin at large. He's already murdered a British returnee from Syria who claimed to have 'information' about the latest Russian plot to destabilise Western Europe. He may also be pursuing her sole British confidante. And he's definitely seeking an American secret servicewoman named Daisy Hallenbeck. There are reasons to think Daisy knows precisely what's going on but, disturbingly, she seems to have fallen off the map. Not even the US embassy knows where she is. John Mordred is assigned to investigate. He finds himself up against the clock in a completely unconventional way. Among his top priorities is that Ruby Parker doesn't leave MI7 with the words 'unsolved case' against her name.