Charles Cumming

Who is Charles Cumming?

Charles Cumming is a British writer of spy fiction. The son of Ian Cumming and Caroline Pilkington, he was educated at Ludgrove School, Eton College and the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated with 1st Class Honours in English Literature. The Observer has described him as "the best of the new generation of British spy writers who are taking over where John le Carré and Len Deighton left off".

In 1995, Charles Cumming was approached for recruitment by the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service but did not go on to work for them. A Spy By Nature, a novel inspired by his experience with MI6, was first published in the UK in June 2001. The novel's hero, Alec Milius, is a flawed loner in his early 20s who is instructed by MI5 to sell doctored research data on oil exploration in the Caspian Sea to the Central Intelligence Agency.

In August 2001, Charles Cumming moved to Madrid. His second novel, The Hidden Man, tells the story of two brothers investigating the murder of their father, a former SIS officer, at the hands of the Russian mafia. The Hidden Man also examines the clandestine role played by SIS and the CIA during the Soviet war in Afghanistan.