Title: Soldier Spy
Author: Tom Marcus
Year: 2017
Genre: True Crime, History, Autobiography, Spy
Tom Marcus was an MI5 surveillance operative for many years, in his memoir he reveals what life was like working for the secret organisation. This book was selected by my local book shop to be our True Crime book club read and I didn’t know anything about the book prior to picking it up but was curious to read about what it would be like to work for MI5 in the modern day.
In the book Tom Marcus gives us an account of his upbringing in a broken home from the North of England with an alcoholic father and a mother that seemed to flit in and out of his life. He joined the army at 16 where he became a PTI for recruits and according to his recollections he criticized the Colonel of the regiment for cheating on his sit-ups so he got transferred to “special-ops” in Northern Ireland and later to MI5 as a surveillance operative.
The rest of the book details Marcus’ training to become a surveillance operative, as well as various operations that he was involved in, from tracking IRA terrorist cells, to radical Muslim extremists. However the job eventually took over his life and pushed him to the limits of physical and mental endurance, which left him suffering with PTSD and being made to retire from the service.
Thoughts
I found Soldier Spy to be a very entertaining and enjoyable memoir to read and it is very exciting to be in the moment with Marcus going through these operations which have been important to help keep the UK and it’s citizens safe and I was able to read it very easily in big chunks and enjoyed most of my time reading the book.
However I did find I didn’t really have a deep opinion on any of the operations and in our book group we had a discussion on how much we thought the book was true and how much was embellished. It does seem quite a lot of the book’s operations read as larger than life and at times like they are out of a movie and it was also noticed that MI5 did clear this book for publication which suggests that the book doesn’t really have any great insights or perhaps it is so far from the truth that it isn’t really that honest.
Marcus as a narrator of the book can also be a voice which could get on many reader’s nerves. For much of the book he says how he was “the best” and “the country’s only option” when he was usually working with a team which comes across as arrogant and self-aggrandising.
The chapters towards the end where he begins to suffer the effects of PTSD arising from his hyper-vigilance are probably times where he is at his most vulnerable and in a world of toxic masculinity and men’s mental health and high suicide rates his discomfort at admitting his mental health issues are interesting, although he seems to imply he got better just from running really fast which kind of cheapens this part.
Whilst he was clearly doing a dangerous job and I have a lot of respect for Marcus for that and the book for me was entertaining, I don’t think ti was a particularly accurate or truthful reflection of life as an MI5 oeprative.
If you have read this book, I would love to know your thoughts in the comments down below.
