A Suspicion of Spies: Risk, Secrets and Shadows — the Biography of Wilfred ‘Biffy’ Dunderdale (Everyman's Library Barbreck)

The best-selling biography of the greatest spy you've never heard of.

A Suspicion of Spies is the first-ever biography of “Biffy” Dunderdale, telling the fascinating story of an extraordinary man—suave, sophisticated, charming, and wealthy, yet also a ruthless and highly effective spymaster.

From the Russian Revolution to the Cold War and beyond, Dunderdale’s career was filled with adventure, courage, glamour, and danger.

In 1916, at just seventeen, Wilfred “Biffy” Dunderdale was working for his father, delivering submarines from Vladivostok to St. Petersburg for the Russian Imperial Navy. During a sea trial with an unfamiliar dockyard crew, he spotted a group of German ships, gave the order to attack, and sank four of them. After narrowly escaping an anti-submarine net with only thirty minutes of oxygen remaining, he surfaced in Kronstadt to find every gun in the port aimed at him. Fluent in Russian, he quickly defused the situation—and was awarded by Tsar Nicholas II the Order of St. Stanislav and the Order of St. Anne, Imperial Russia’s highest honors for military valor and bravery in battle.

Born and raised in Odessa, Biffy quickly learned to move easily across all levels of society. Brilliant and curious, by sixteen he was studying Naval Architecture and Naval Engineering in St. Petersburg—while continuing his education in the waterfront bars of both Odessa and St. Petersburg. At eighteen, he was recruited by Naval Intelligence as an interpreter, fluent in English, Russian, French, Polish, and German.

Biffy went on to become a daring and accomplished member of the British Secret Intelligence Service, describing his forty-year career as “forty years of licensed thuggery.” Despite appearing in more than sixty books and countless online accounts, his full story has never been told—until now. “He was rather like a ghost one knew was there, but the apparition never stood still long enough for a clear view.”

A Suspicion of Spies finally reveals the full story of this remarkable man—a suave, sophisticated, genial, and wealthy gentleman who was also a fearless and effective spy. His life mirrored the intrigue and adventure of his times, from pre-revolutionary Russia to Cold War Europe.

A lifelong friend of Ian Fleming, Biffy is widely believed to have inspired the character of James Bond—a connection supported by his role as “consultant” for From Russia with Love. The thrilling exploits and covert operations chronicled in this biography could easily have come straight from the pages of a Bond novel.

This is the story of the secret world of intelligence—complex, shadowy, and quintessentially British—and of one of its most brilliant and elusive operatives.

Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer OBE has led a life filled with action and adventure. During his twenty years in the British Army he saw active service in Northern Ireland, the Falklands campaign, the Gulf War and the Balkans, as well as serving in the Far East, Cyprus and Germany. Key appointments have included Chief of Staff of an Armored Brigade, Staff Officer at the Directorate of Special Forces and Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion Scots Guards, among many others. Over the course of his illustrious military career, Spicer has developed extensive knowledge of intelligence, counter-terrorism, complex relations and protective security. In 2001 he founded the private security company Aegis, which has counted the UK, US and Italian governments among its clients. He is the author of An Unorthodox Soldier: Peace and War and the Sandline Affair (2000), a fast-moving account of his military life, including the events surrounding his time in Papua New Guinea when he was captured and held at gunpoint, as well as the notorious 'Sandline Affair' of 1996, and A Dangerous Enterprise (2021) that charts the history of the little-known, yet remarkable 15th Motor Gunboat Flotilla, commanded directly by the Secret Intelligence Service.