The Spy Who Wrote Back

David Bickford spent a career inside Britain’s security state, shaping the rules that govern MI5 and MI6. Now he is turning that knowledge into brisk, contemporary spy fiction that treats tradecraft as more than gadgetry and glamour. He writes with a lawyer’s precision and a field officer’s respect for risk, a combination that gives his novels an uncommon ring of truth.

Bickford served as Under Secretary of State and Legal Director to both domestic and foreign intelligence services, and was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath for his work. On his author site he describes working in the tunnels of secrecy, close to officers confronting terrorism and organised crime, then helping to pull those institutions toward public accountability. That arc, secrecy to scrutiny, is the spine of his life story and the quiet motor in his fiction.

The legislative record is unusually concrete for a thriller writer. During a reforming period at the end of the Cold War, Bickford was involved in the Security Service Act 1989, the Official Secrets Act 1989 and the Intelligence Services Act 1994. He helped design procedures that convert intelligence into evidence while protecting a fair trial, and introduced oversight rules for running agents. He also handled press liaison and built links with civil liberties advocates to keep the balance between state power and individual rights in view.

After government, Bickford took the debate overseas and into the classroom as a visiting professor and public witness on counter-terror oversight. That public profile, once unthinkable for a senior intelligence lawyer, underlines how far Britain’s agencies have moved toward visibility, as even MI5 now sets out its law, oversight and ethics in public.

The books themselves often centre on Katya Petrovna, a driven operative in a multinational G8 Intelligence Agency. Katya tracks a ruthless launderer tied to Gaddafi’s missing millions, moving from North Africa to the high tables where stolen money is washed clean, and is available from Bookshop.org and Amazon. The Informer drops Katya undercover in a mafia-run casino world that stretches from the Black Sea to Macau, likewise on Bookshop.org and Amazon. The latest Katya title, Arctic Betrayal, pushes her into the high north, where a mining empire and a covert submarine project mask a uranium scheme with global consequences. For series context and extras, see Bickford’s Espionage & Spy Thrillers page.

A Cold War turn: Cold Protocol

Bickford’s next release shows he is not confined to one hero. Cold Protocol, due in March 2026, shifts the lens to Berlin in December 1979. The city is split, volatile and close to the edge of a Cold War miscalculation. Mike Peterson, a United States political adviser in Berlin, is probing Soviet manoeuvres while in love with Helena Weber, a young East Berliner. Every illicit crossing to see her risks his position and her freedom, since the Stasi punished fraternisation with ruthless efficiency.

A holiday truce tempts fate. Mike persuades his friend, U.S. Ranger Luke Reeves, to drive him covertly into East Germany. They stumble on a Soviet personnel carrier where none should be, flee across snowbound fields into a clandestine safe-house network, switch vehicles to shake pursuit, then hit Checkpoint Bravo where they meet Lev Leviaski, an urbane Soviet political adviser who knows more than he admits. Lev carries orders from General Andreyev to keep the Americans from getting back to the West, orders he pointedly ignores for reasons of his own.

Back in East Berlin, Lev navigates his own minefield. Andreyev is running opaque intelligence games while a Four-Power meeting at Spandau Prison weighs the health of “Number 7,” Rudolf Hess. Mike and Helena steal time where they can. Their meetings attract the attention of the Stasi and of Gunter, a doorman who covets Helena and resents the risk she takes. The novel moves between the bright consumer promise of West Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm and the grey, watchful streets of the East. Loyalties blur as personal acquaintance collides with official duty, and both men decide how much to risk for what, or whom, they value. As the political temperature rises, the dangers become intimate. One mistake could spark an incident or ruin the lives at the story’s centre.

Why the realism lands

Endorsements reflect Bickford’s dual appeal. Former spy chiefs and national security lawyers praise the realism, while commercial writers admire the pace. His own site collects reactions from figures such as Sir Stephen Lander and Bear Grylls, which speak to both authenticity and sheer momentum.

Bickford’s process reads as disciplined and collaborative. In interviews and site Q&As he credits long morning walks with his wife, Cary, where plots and characters are tested out loud, then shaped with an editor’s eye for logic. The ritual explains the clean through-lines in the books, and the willingness to let characters surprise the reader without breaking plausibility. For upcoming events and appearances, check News & Events.

Availability is straightforward and modern. The novels are stocked through mainstream retailers such as Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org, with UK distribution via Turnaround Publisher Services. It is an indie operation with national reach, a model that suits a series designed to be entered at any point.

What sets Bickford apart is not only experience but perspective. He writes as someone who helped draft the guardrails and then watched real people work within them. The result is espionage fiction that respects process without letting it smother momentum. In a market crowded with recycled tropes, his work offers something rarer, a view from inside the law that still finds space for jeopardy, consequence and the human cost of secrets.

Where to begin

If you want the chill of classic Berlin, start with Cold Protocol when it lands in March 2026. For a contemporary entry point, try Katya – Arctic Betrayal, then circle back to Katya and The Informer to see the world take shape. However you enter, you will find a writer who treats intelligence not as fantasy but as a system run by fallible people under pressure, which is precisely why the stories bite.