The Eagle In The Mirror

Part biography, part forensic jigsaw puzzle, part cold-case detective investigation, The Eagle in the Mirror is the astonishing untold story of Charles Howard “Dick” Ellis, the Australian-born British intelligence officer and master spy accused by some espionage experts of being the traitor of the century. The longest serving spy for the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Ellis came to New York at the beginning of World War II as deputy to William Stephenson at British Security Coordination (BSC) and helped set up for William Donovan the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), what would eventually evolve into the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). At one point in the 1940s he was considered one of the top three secret agents in MI6, controlling its activities “for half the world.” Ellis allegedly received prior warning of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and, through the conduit of Stephenson, relayed that warning to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. After World War II, Ellis was awarded the Legion of Merit by President Harry S. Truman. But in the 1980s espionage writer Chapman Pincher and retired Security Service (MI5) intelligence officer Peter Wright posthumously accused Ellis of having operated as a “triple agent” for Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. In 1965, while under interrogation in London, Ellis had allegedly made a confession that he had supplied information to the Nazis prior to the war. The scope of Ellis’s purported betrayal was considered even worse than notorious British traitor and double agent Kim Philby, who defected to the Soviet Union in 1963. However, Pincher’s and Wright’s accusations against Ellis have never been comprehensively proven. Was Ellis guilty or was an innocent man framed? Did he take the fall for someone else? Or had the intelligence agencies of the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia been fatally compromised by a “super-mole”? Jesse Fink unravels a gripping real-life international whodunit in this long-overdue biography of the unheralded Dick Ellis, one of the most consequential figures in modern history.

Part biography, part forensic jigsaw puzzle, part cold-case detective investigation, The Eagle in the Mirror is the story of Charles Howard 'Dick' Ellis. The longest-serving spy for the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Ellis helped set up the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), now known as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS). In the 1940s he was considered one of the top three secret agents in MI6 and controlled its activities, as one journalist put it, 'for half the world'. But in the 1980s crusading espionage journalist Chapman Pincher (in the hugely successful books Their Trade is Treachery and Too Secret Too Long) and retired MI5 intelligence officer Peter Wright (in the worldwide bestseller Spycatcher) posthumously accused Ellis of having operated as a 'triple agent' for Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. In 1965, while under interrogation in London, Ellis had allegedly made a confession that he had supplied information to the Nazis before World War II. However, Pincher's and Wright's accusations against Ellis have never been comprehensively proven. No confession has materialised. Was Ellis guilty or was an innocent man framed? By confessing did he take the fall for someone else? Or had the intelligence agencies of the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia been fatally compromised by a 'super mole'? Internationally bestselling author JESSE FINK (Pure Narco, Bon: The Last Highway, The Youngs) attempts to find out the truth once and for all. The Eagle in the Mirror is not just a long-overdue biography of the unheralded Dick Ellis; it's a gripping real-life international whodunit.

For a quarter century, Luis Antonio Navia worked as a high-level cocaine transporter for all of the major Colombian and Mexican drug cartels, including Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel, and flooded the United States and Europe with cocaine before his dramatic arrest in Venezuela in 2000 during the 12-nation Operation Journey. The story of Navia’s rise, fall, takedown, imprisonment, and redemption is expertly researched and told by acclaimed biographer Jesse Fink, who has gathered interviews with Navia, Navia’s family, and a dozen law-enforcement agents in the United States and Great Britain from agencies such as the DEA, ICE and Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise (now Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs). Told in vivid detail, this true crime story will captivate the reader from start to finish.

The death of Bon Scott is the Da Vinci Code of rock In death, AC/DCÕs trailblazing frontman has become a rock icon, and the legend of the man known around the world simply as ÒBonÓ grows with each passing year. But how much of it is myth? At the heart of Bon: The Last Highway is a special Ñ and unlikely Ñ friendship between an Australian rock star and an alcoholic Texan troublemaker. Jesse Fink, author of the critically acclaimed international bestseller The Youngs: The Brothers Who Built AC/DC, reveals its importance for the first time. Leaving no stone unturned in a three-year journey that begins in Austin and ends in London, Fink takes the reader back to a legendary era for music that saw the relentless AC/DC machine achieve its commercial breakthrough but also threaten to come apart. With unprecedented access to BonÕs lovers, newly unearthed documents, and a trove of never-before-seen photos, Fink divulges startling new information about BonÕs last hours to solve the mystery of how he died. Music fans around the world have been waiting for the original, forensic, unflinching, and masterful biography Bon Scott so richly deserves Ñ and now, finally, itÕs here.

Maddy is picked on by bullies at her new school and terrified by ghosts in the old house her family has moved to - but she soon becomes friends with Clarissa, who slept in that same room and used the same mirror more than 100 years earlier. Then Maddy's baby brother nearly dies of whooping cough, and Clarissa discovers that her poisonous Aunt Lily is even more evil than she seems. The two girls have to use all their intelligence and verve to fight against Aunt Lily's plots, each in her own time, with help from Clarissa's ghostly brother Bertie¿but will they succeed?An enthralling, original debut novel by award-winning poet and short-story writer Jenny Blackford.

During our honeymoon in January 1979 in the Bourke's Luck area in Mpumalanga, South Africa, Lydia and I met a nature conservation officer who told us the remarkable story of how they released a Black eagle that was in the Pretoria zoo for ten years. This happened about a week prior to our visit. She told us how excited they were when the bird finally arrived from Pretoria in its wooden crate. They knew that this was the day for the eagle to return to the life and environment of its design. It would never need to waste another day in a cage. Their excitement soon turned to frustration when, after opening the cage, the bird just sat there with blank eyes and refused to fly! This continued for several hours. The ten years of caged life must have trapped this poor bird's mind in an invisible enclosure! How could they get the eagle to realize that it was indeed free?

The exciting follow-up to Brothers in Arms. Miles Vorkosigan is in trouble. His brother, a cloned stranger formed from tissue stolen from Miles when he was a child, wants to murder and replace him. Unfortunately, Mark has learned that without Miles, he is . . . nothing.