The Malayan Emergency lasted from 1948 to 1960. During these tumultuous years, following so soon after the Japanese surrender at the end of the Second World War, the whole country was once more turned upside down and the lives of the people changed. The war against the Communist Party of Malaya's determined efforts to overthrow the Malayan government involved the whole population in one form or another. Dr Comber analyses the pivotal role of the Malayan Police's Special Branch, the government's supreme intelligence agency, in defeating the communist uprising and safeguarding the security of the country. He shows for the first time how the Special Branch was organised and how it worked in providing the security forces with political and operational intelligence. His book represents a major contribution to our understanding of the Emergency and will be of great interest to all students of Malay(si)a's recent history as well as counter-guerrilla operations. It can profitably be mined, too, to see what lessons can be learned for counterinsurgency operations in other parts of the world.

Prior to and after Kenya's independence, this biography recounts a Kenyan police officer's daily experiences, including armed combat in the bush, the technical operations in Nairobi, and the battle of wits against the South African intelligence services in Lesotho and Botswana. Exploring the intrigue and brutality of the officer's position, the book provides insight into security force operations.

The author has chosen seventeen of the most important or representative British spy novelists to write about. He presents some basic literary analysis and criticism, trying both to place them in historical perspective and to describe and analyze the content and form of their fiction.

This searing account primarily covers Ed Bird's Special Branch (SB) service in the Beitbridge area of southern Matabeleland, 1976-1980, encompassing Operations Repulse and Tangent of the bitter Rhodesian 'bush war'. Joining the British South Africa Police (BSAP) in 1964, Bird cut his teeth on Selous Scouts 'pseudo' operations during Operation Hurricane in 1974-1976, so was well equipped to deal with the insidious escalation of the ZANLA and ZIPRA campaigns in the south of the country. A meticulous recorder, Bird implemented and maintained the Beitbridge SB incident log, and it is this diary of terror and death upon which Bird's account hangs, interspersed with detailed accounts of fire fights, ambushes, landmine blasts, ZANLA executions, traitors and assassinations, SB 'dirty tricks' and 'turning' terrorists. Although first and foremost an intelligence-gatherer, Bird thrived on combat and against all protocol inveigled his way onto Fire Force operations and as an air mobile MAG machine-gunner on converted Police Reserve Air Wing aircraft. Decorated for bravery but overlooked for promotion, Bird's BSAP career became victim to spurious political expedience.

Initially tasked with combatting the threat of Irish republican terrorists in the reign of Queen Victoria, the Metropolitan Police Special Branch went on to play a major role in the defence of the realm for over 120 years. Over time, 'the Branch', as it came to be known, assumed a much wider role, and was held responsible for monitoring the activities of anarchists, Bolsheviks and even the suffragettes. Later, it became the executive arm of MI5 in dealing with espionage cases, as (much to their frustration) the Security Service had no power to arrest potential spies. As the war against terrorism became more intense in the latter half of the twentieth century, Special Branch worked closely with the Anti- Terrorist Branch in tackling this new threat. Packed with accounts of extraordinary missions, life-saving acts of bravery and high-risk intelligence-gathering, Special Branch offers the first complete history of this unique, but now defunct, service, which was subsumed into the Counter-Terrorism Command of the Metropolitan Police in 2006. Special Branch veterans Ray Wilson and Ian Adams have brought this long and distinguished history to life with the help of recollections from former colleagues, as well as their own experiences of life in the Branch. In doing so, they have also illuminated the underlying friction marring its relations with the Security Service - without doubt a factor in its eventual demise.

The Special Branch of the London Metropolitan Police has been a hidden but important part of Britain's political life for a hundred years. Opinions on its role have varied between those who saw it as protecting Britain from terrorism, revolution or worse and those who regarded the Special Branch as a threat to Britain's civil liberties. The truth has never been easy to establish, mainly due to the obsessive secrecy of the Branch.

Absent History is an account of the multi-faceted activities of the British Special Branch as it tackled problems of religious extremism, espionage and sedition in Singapore from 1915 to 1942. It documents the severe threats to security and stability beneath the placid peacefulness of that period. Drawing upon previously unavailable archival materials, Absent History reveals the often-privileged view that the Special Branch had of the events and strands of Malayan / Singapore history. period of halcyon peacefulness that popular opinion depicted. Throughout these years, a successive number of countries carried out active espionage and subversion efforts against the colonial government. As these threats accelerated, causing considerable social and security unrest, the British stepped up their counter-espionage and counter-subversion. In 1916 they set up a Special Branch, the predecessor to Singapore's Internal Security Department and the Malayan Special Branch.

Breaking the code to her heart... Independent and stubbornly unmarried, Abbie Vayle has always been a little too smart for her own good. But she may have gone too far when she starts her own rare-book business--and accidentally acquires an antique book in Paris with a mysterious code scribbled in the margins.... Someone wants the book back--and is willing to kill to get it. The only trouble is, Abbie no longer has the book. It's locked away in the customs house in Dover. Now it's a race against time as Abbie stays one step ahead of her pursuers. The last person she wants to confide in is her best friend, Hugh Templar, whom she knows only as a formidable scholar who shares her passion for Roman antiquities. But as Hugh keeps turning up where she least expects him, a few things begin to dawn on her....Not only is Hugh surprisingly--in fact incredibly--handsome without his glasses on, but he's strangely "professional" in how he handles her mysterious enemies. Hugh is clearly not what he seems. And soon Abbie realizes that neither is she...as she discovers what it means to love with all her heart and soul.

The Rhodesian Bush War had grumbled on at a low key since the early 1960s, but it escalated sharply in late 1972 when major infiltrations of ZANLA guerillas from Mozambique began. The Rhodesian forces found it difficult to engage the guerrillas using conventional counter-insurgency methods, because the enemy's tactic was to merge with the local tribal population. This resulted in the formation of the Selous Scouts whose role was to infiltrate pseudo-geurillas into enemy groups, gather intelligence and turn captured guerillas into pro-government fighters. The Selous Scouts accounted for 68% of all guerillas killed or captured during the war.

'Undercover lays bare the deceit, betrayal and cold-blooded violation practised again and again by undercover police officers - troubling, timely and brilliantly executed.' Henry Porter The gripping stories of a group of police spies - written by the award-winning investigative journalists who exposed the Mark Kennedy scandal - and the uncovering of forty years of state espionage. This was an undercover operation so secret that some of our most senior police officers had no idea it existed. The job of the clandestine unit was to monitor British 'subversives' - environmental activists, anti-racist groups, animal rights campaigners. Police stole the identities of dead people to create fake passports, driving licences and bank accounts. They then went deep undercover for years, inventing whole new lives so that they could live incognito among the people they were spying on. They used sex, intimate relationships and drugs to build their credibility. They betrayed friends, deceived lovers, even fathered children. And their operations continue today. Undercover reveals the truth about secret police operations - the emotional turmoil, the psychological challenges and the human cost of a lifetime of deception - and asks whether such tactics can ever be justified.