Robert Shiels

Two questions: who do you trust? Who do you really trust? If that is the first sift for the intelligence services, then it is notable that counter-espionage officers in MI5 had been long wary about disgruntled KGB officers claiming to be willing to betray their motherland. That point from the prolog

Roy Cohn’s immediate family had all worked hard and succeeded in the short period that they had been in America. He benefited from their position and wealth. He made an effort for his legal qualification, but played the system to avoid the draft, towards the end of the war. From the early 1950

Why, asks Dr Macdonald, did the Scots in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries know so little about their past and even less about those who "controlled" their history. The answer has implications as to how Scottish history, and, to an extent, Scottish identity has evolved. This is an extraordinary

In the scheme of things in Britain, a political career has never been regarded as wholly inconsistent with later judicial appointment. Lord Salisbury wrote, and warned, in 1897 that "the judicial salad requires both legal oil and political vinegar: but disastrous effects will follow if due proportio

Geoff Andrews’ Radicals traces the working-class traditions, educational movements and moral values that shaped modern Britain and the Labour Party. This thoughtful review praises the book’s erudition and sense of loss, while questioning its limited attention to nationalism and regional

Please note a preliminary point: the title of this book refers to ‘RAF Terror’. The list of abbreviations in the book does not assist the reader with the relevant meaning of ‘RAF’. There is only a brief mention of the full name of the organisation well into the book. &nb

As the AI boom begins to wobble with vast valuations of non-profitmaking companies now being questioned, Robert Shiels, enjoys a timely study of the world’s first global crash. Over the course of the 1850s and 1860s, during the first era of globalization, the world experienced an unprecedented

The place in the legal system of notable lawyers in the Victorian and other eras often attracted biographers, or at least appreciative commentaries. There are, however, many other lawyers whose distinctive contributions in their community may have become lost in time. Kenneth Macdonald is one such f

In a foreword to Peter Tobin: Hunting Shadows Tom Wood QPM, a retired senior officer formerly of Lothian and Borders Police, refers to "the most cursed of coincidences". That was a cohort of Scots, Angus Sinclair, Robert Black and Peter Tobin, all of whom in their time apparently killed at will. Jan

It is a sign of the passage of time that the subtitle to this biography should explicitly identify Bernard Montgomery as a ‘World War II general’. ‘Monty’ and a few, but not many, other generals were well known as celebrities to the wartime public. Montgomery was an outsider,

In March 2023, Alex Murdaugh (pronounced ‘Murdock’ by Americans), an attorney, was found guilty of the murders of his wife Maggie and their younger son Paul at their home in South Carolina. The circumstances of the deaths were violent; both having been shot. The news outlets produced a n

Vladimir Putin’s penchant for assassinating his political enemies is nothing new for Russian rulers. His former employers, the KGB and, before that, the NKVD, were dab hands at it. Stalin’s order to murder Leon Trotsky in exile in Mexico has plenty of parallels today giving this book con

In May 2009 a meeting of residents of flats in Saltwater Mansions in Margate included Caroline Lane, a resident in a ground floor flat there. The meeting was somewhat contentious because of a dispute around essential repairs. Caroline Lane resided alone, and she challenged her liability for payment.

The unsolved murder of Stevan Markovic, the Serbian bodyguard and associate of French film star Alain Delon, became an immense scandal in the Paris of 1968 engulfing the highest politicans in the land and highlighted Delon’s connections with gangsters. Rumours also abounded about orgies organ

In this true, but often scarcely-believable, story Neil Root explains as best can be done the personal history of Peter Rachman before the latter arrived in Britain. His mysterious background relies for the most part on Rachman’s own undocumented explanations.