‘A riveting read.’ – Professor Richard Aldrich

‘The Last Cambridge Spy is not just a fascinating, well-paced book about an interesting individual, but it also invites us to re-appraise the very idea of the “Cambridge spy ring”.’ – Sir Dermot Turing

John Cairncross was among the most damaging spies of the twentieth century. A member of the infamous Cambridge Ring of Five, he leaked highly sensitive documents from Bletchley Park, MI6 and the Treasury to the Soviet Union – including the first atomic secrets and raw decrypts from Enigma and Tunny that influenced the outcome of the Battle of Kursk in 1943.

In 2014, Cairncross appeared as a secondary, though key, character in the biopic of Alan Turing’s life, The Imitation Game. While the other members of the Cambridge Ring of Five have been the subject of extensive biographical study, Cairncross has largely been overlooked by both academic and popular writers. Despite clear interest, he has remained a mystery – until now.

The Last Cambridge Spy is the first ever biography of John Cairncross, using recently released material to tell the story of his life and espionage.

‘The Last Cambridge Spy is not just a fascinating, well-placed book about an interesting individual, but is also invites us to re-appraise the very idea of the “Cambridge spy ring”.’

‘Chris Smith offer us a remarkable account of John Cairncross...he has captured him at last - a riveting read.’

Dr CHRIS SMITH is a Lecturer in History at Coventry University. He is the author of The Hidden History of Bletchley Park (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) as well as several related articles that have been published in journals such as History of Science. DERMOT TURING is the author of X, Y and Z: the Real Story of how Enigma Was Broken; Alan Turing Decoded; and Enigma Traitors, which reveals the inadequacies of Allied codes during the Second World War. He began writing in 2014 after a career in law. He is a trustee of The National Museum of Computing and a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College, Oxford. Dermot is married with two sons and lives in Kippen in Stirlingshire.