Jason Webster's Blog

I’m gobsmacked by Barry Forshaw’s incredible review in today’s Daily Express for BLOOD MED:

“Webster [is] one of the most creative writers working within the field of crime fiction… There is an army of literary sleuths vying for our attention, but Webster’s unconventional protagonist is something special, vividly characterised… Apart from the powerful central narrative, the descriptions of a desperate and bankrupt country add immensely to the appeal of the novel… Webster remains one of the most entertaining of contemporary crime writers.”

Two boxes with copies of BLOOD MED, the new Max Cámara novel, arrived in the post this morning.

The book is published in the UK on 5 June

Later I’ll be announcing a giveaway of 10 of them on Goodreads.

Watch out for updates!

I’m delighted by the superb review for THE SPY WITH 29 NAMES in The Observer: “Pacy and enthralling… has all the hallmarks of a classic espionage movie.”

My seminar at the LSE this Thursday on Juan Pujol – The Spy with 29 Names – is open to public if anyone wants to come along. It’s chaired by Paul Preston, and Nigel Jones will be asking questions. Starts 6 pm in Cañada Blanch seminar room COW1.11, 1st floor, Cowdray House, Portugal St. Hope to see some of you there!

The Spy With 29 Names is Book of the Week in today’s Daily Mail.

“Fascinating, unputdownable…”

Publication day at last for THE SPY WITH 29 NAMES. And I’m delighted to see a wonderful review for it in The Spectator: “Gripping and stylish… reads like a thrilling work of fiction.”

I’ve put up a new website for my soon-to-be-published book, THE SPY WITH 29 NAMES.

Please have a look:

Fifty years ago today, one of the most talented of MI5′s WWII intelligence officers died in a car crash in Mallorca. Tomás Harris was a very gifted man – a painter, musician, art dealer and collector. And he played a crucial, if little known, role in the success of the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944. He is one of those individuals about whom you can say that history – and the world – would be very different without him.

He was half-Jewish, half-Spanish (his grandfather had been a bullfighter). And he was the case officer for MI5 double agent ‘Garbo’ – Juan Pujol, who’s biography I have written. It was Harris’s inventive genius combined with Pujol’s wiliness and brilliant imagination that allowed the British to fool the Nazis so completely about Allied intentions in the summer of 1944, thereby turning what would almost certainly have been a disaster into a stunning success. Even Hitler himself was taken in by Garbo’s web of stories and fantasies.

Harris was very close friends with Cambridge spies Kim Philby (he was godfather to Philby’s son), Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess. This has led some to speculate that Harris himself was a Soviet agent of some sort, and that his death in a car crash just months after Philby’s defection to Moscow, was no accident.

If you want to know what I think about the matter, all will be revealed in my forthcoming book on Garbo and Harris – THE SPY WITH 29 NAMES – published 3 April by Chatto & Windus.

A heads up for the two new books of mine published over the course of 2014:

THE SPY WITH 29 NAMES appears in April and is the true story of Spanish WWII double agent Juan Pujol – MI5′s agent Garbo – who played a hugely important role in the success of the 1944 Normandy campaign and ultimately the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Then in June the fourth in the Max Cámara series will be coming out – BLOOD MED. It’s a page-turning thriller that takes a hard look at where Spain is right now.

Watch out for more announcements here – I’ll be appearing at a few literary festivals as well.

Have a great 2014!

I’ve written a special Max Cámara Christmas short story, and it’s now available as an ebook.

It’s called The Killing of el Niño Jesús, and it’s available online.

Merry Christmas to all!

http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/editions/the-killing-of-el-nio-jess/9781473511279