Spyology by Dugald Steer

Spyology by Dugald Steer
Buy Spyology by Dugald Steer at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Children's Non-Fiction
Reviewer: Sue Magee
Summary: The complete book of spycraft delivers fun, information and history. Highly recommended for your aspiring young Bond.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 15	Date: November 2008
Publisher: Templar Publishing
ISBN: 978-1840118612
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Agent K – also known as Spencer Blake – set out to write this manual of Spyology, otherwise known as Tradecraft, in the course of his last mission, the deadly Operation CODEX. Obviously he saved the civilised world (again) but he apparently perished during the operation. No one was more surprised than the head of Special Intelligence Service (P.O. Box 850, London) when the manual which I now have in front of me turned up at the headquarters of MI6 in an unmarked envelope several months after Agent K disappeared. The original plan was to use it to train new recruits using various challenges based on Operation CODEX. It's recently become available to the public under the fifty year rule.

Don't be fooled by the fact that there are only fifteen pages in this book. This is no slim and insubstantial volume – it's packed with material which is going to delight any fan of Young Bond, Alex Rider, Jimmy Coates or the host of other young spies and assassins which have flooded the bookshops in recent years. This is different though; this book is going to demand that the reader gets involved. They're going to learn how to be a spy and solve the mystery of Operation CODEX.

You're going to have to accept that you will find yourself being observed through small(ish) holes in a newspaper – Spy Rule # 1: Observe, But Be Unobserved, but do remember that there are worse things. Robert Baden-Powell posed as a butterfly collector. The training is rigorous. It's not just the physical training which has to be finely judged – language skills will need to be perfected, surveillance mastered and, should the worst come to the worst, your young spy will need to know how to resist interrogation. There are case studies to help along the way.

There's a lot of additional material in the book too – envelopes contain codes, visiting cards will help the young spy develop a cover story and there's even a red magnifying filter decoder hidden inside the front cover and at the back of the book there's the CODEX cryptotron. No – I can't tell you what it does – I'd have to silence myself permanently if I uttered one word about it.

Look, I really can't tell you a great deal more without putting you in danger but the aspiring (pre-teen) spy is going to love this book. There's hours of fun to be had and quite a bit of genuine history to be absorbed along the way. My spies tell me that this could be a very popular gift this Christmas.

I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy along to The Bookbag.

If this is the type of book which appeals to your young Bond then we think that they might also enjoy Crimebusters by Clive Gifford.

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