Malayan Spy

BELONGING, ESPIONAGE, AND BETRAYAL

In modern Kuala Lumpur, a brief encounter with a long-forgotten perfume sends Hamid staggering back to the memory of his youth in London’ s Great Smog of 1952, to a Malaya on the cusp of independence and to the terror of being chased by Soviet tanks in an epic uprising in Cold War East Berlin. Hoping to be saved by the fading Empire his father has served, Hamid must rely on his own wits (never a good idea) to be useful to a ruthless Soviet Colonel and his enigmatic mistress. How does one even end up in such a situation? Well, it started with a disastrous Christmas in the English countryside and three competitive friends. Join Hamid as he quests for a home he can never find, for nice things, for love and for identity. Comic and thrilling, this post-colonial novel sets the end of Empire in a global context with the unwitting Hamid at the centre; educated in the tastes of a bygone era, searching for the one who might make him whole.