John Mordred

A cabal of Russian oligarchs instigates unrest in the Far East of Russia as the first stage of an attempt to unseat Vladimir Putin. Britain offers covert support in the form of five MI7 agents. The disturbances mirror those in Eastern Ukraine and, if pushed far enough, might persuade the Kremlin to retract its territorial interests in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhia. However, once the five operatives are shipped east, events take an unexpected turn. One by one, they begin to disappear.  

Everyone knows UK general elections aren’t what they were. British politics, Westminster in particular, is mired in an integrity crisis. Expenses scandals, cash for questions, a tainted honours system, and other wrong-turns have deeply disillusioned the electorate...The Social Magus is the first of the Tales of MI7 series to be set mostly in London. Written in the run-up to the 2015 general election, it examines some of the trends and concerns that later materialised in “Corbynism” and the Momentum movement.

When the 14-year-old daughter of a British government minister leaves the country to join ISIS, MI7 dispatches a cohort of agents to Turkey to intercept her en route. However, maybe not everything is as it seems. How to explain, for example, her long-standing prior antipathy to Islamofascism? Her sudden conversion to radicalism on the very day of her departure? The fact that there is neither sight nor sign of her in Istanbul - or elsewhere?

The World War Offshore...no one knows how it started or who’s behind it, but one thing’s for certain: It’s the biggest anti-capitalist demonstration the world has ever seen. 

London, 2016, and the lead-up to the EU referendum. The liberal consensus in Europe is breaking down and no one knows exactly what will replace it. As always, there are those with an eye to the main chance. In the course of investigating the disappearance of a prominent Eurosceptic MP, MI7 agent John Mordred finds himself under hostile scrutiny from obscure figures within his own organization. It quickly turns out that his investigation and theirs may not be entirely independent of each other.

John Mordred doesn’t want to leave MI7’s Red Department, but then life has a way of twisting his arm. When his youngest sister gets kidnapped in one of the world’s worst war-zones, everyone agrees he’s the ideal person to mount a rescue...only protocol forbids it. Yet while resigning might be easy, getting out of the UK isn’t. Not when the police and the intelligence services have been warned to stop him by every means at their disposal. Even assuming he can overcome that, getting into Libya is going to be even more of a challenge.

After an acrimonious US election whose outcome Moscow may or may not have influenced, 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 a third world war?

A 51-year-old pub landlord from Hammersmith, a DJ from Lambeth, a prize-winning novelist influenced by Charles Dickens, and Iain Sinclair, a young British intelligence officer: just four of the 10 contenders in 2018’s truly fabulous Ultimate Londoner competition.