SPYCRAFT

SPYCRAFT
by Nadine Akkerman & 
Pete Langman.

Spycraft takes us back to the time between the 1550's & 1660's, when a quill & not an exploding pen would be the weapon of choice for a spy of that period. 
Where a feather from a particular bird, even from a particular
wing, was used to copy a person's own writing. A skilled forger & blackmailer could then have a person at their mercy, by forging anything they so wished on to paper.

It was incredible to learn just how long codes in the form of ciphers have been used. Readers will learn of some very early examples using cipher tables & wheels & what they intended to hide from those without the cipher key.
Communications on to paper would usually require a trusted messenger to go back & forth, often with ingenious methods of hiding letters & documents from those wishing to intercept them.
The art of writing small allowed some to be coated & swallowed. Alternatively if you were lucky enough to know of a messenger with a hollowed wooden leg, this could also prove useful.

On occasions, it is an actual person that needs to be the one who is hidden or is in dire need to get away. Here the book reveals some great tales of donning disguises & cross-dressing by both men & women.
Innovative ways to conceal a small weapon were also quite ingenious. From a small dagger to a pistol, a potential victim or perpetrator would need their weapon close to hand. So what better way than inside a hollowed out book. 
Surely out of all the above misdemeanors, doing that to a book is surely the biggest crime of all? 

There are many more secrets to be revealed from this fascinating period of skullduggery. This book has revealed some extraordinary feats of espionage & deception that still reverberate centuries later. The author's deserve great praise for their research & their sharing of such intriguing stories. 

* I was stopped from sharing the  above stories with my better half. As I finish typing this, I already know the book will soon be opened, within these walls again. The fact that we rarely read the same books, must be a perfect recommendation on which to end.

Spycraft is available now in hardback, published by Yale University Press. 
I thank Yale UP here in the UK for this review copy. 


 




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