In Secret Service Book

In this debut of a uniquely talented novelist, Ian Fleming's real world of spies, love, passion, and danger is brought to life when a young woman inherits Fleming's long-hidden account of spying during World War II and must finish it to find out why people are trying to kill her.

In 1964, James Bond's creator sealed a package containing a manuscript he thought no one would read until fifty years after his death. Ian Fleming was an officer in Britain's Naval Intelligence during World War II, and he had his own adventures to recount. His family ties and his career had taken him to the upper echelons of British and American society and espionage, a world where passionate affairs, exotic locations, and polite cocktail chatter were interlaced with danger, betrayal, and deceit. He'd replicated that world in his famous novels, but this manuscript contained a real spy story that would explode history when its secrets were revealed. He'd chosen the reader, and he'd have to trust she would serve the truth.

In 2005, Amy Greenberg -- a young American academic with a glittering future -- is summoned to Ireland to claim the contents of her grandfather's safe deposit box, in which she finds only one thing: a manuscript by Ian Fleming. The pages detail Fleming's involvement in Allied spycraft and contain information so confidential, so potentially explosive, that Amy soon discovers that people on both sides of the Atlantic are willing to kill to maintain its secrecy. As she journeys back home with her precious cargo, Amy finds herself in a race against time -- she must unlock the manuscript's shocking and fascinating secrets and outwit the unknown assailants who would do anything to bury the truth and protect a traitor's name.

Peopled with characters including Winston Churchill, Princess Diana, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Anthony Blunt, and FDR and illustrated with authenticating documents, In Secret Service is a historical mystery inside a contemporary thriller. The debut of an exciting new writer, this book combines impeccable research with thrilling action, in a brand-new take on espionage suspense.

Publishers Weekly

First-time novelist Silver spins an unlikely if entertaining tale connecting mysteries concerning the abdication of King Edward VIII, WWII and the death of Princess Diana. Present-day Yale history professor Amy Greenberg journeys to Dublin to pick up the contents of a previously unknown safety deposit box leased by her deceased grandfather which turns out to be an unpublished, nonfiction manuscript written in 1964 by Ian Fleming of James Bond fame: "You see, I've been sitting on a terrible secret since the war." The Fleming manuscript, alternating chapters with the contemporary story, details how Edward, after abdicating, formed a secret relationship with Adolf Hitler. The modern-day sections of the book consist mostly of Amy and her boyfriend, Scott Brown, fighting off a host of villains who want to steal, for rather obscure reasons, the Fleming material. Silver delights in making the sometimes improbable historical links that form the basis of his plot, and his high spirits are so contagious that readers will happily go along for the ride. (May)

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