The poet Sean O’Brien has made ‘Witchfinder’ one of his books of 2019 in the Times Literary Supplement. Nice little boost before Christmas! He writes:
‘In 2019 two novels of espionage have refreshed my interest in the subject. John le Carré’s Agent Running in the Field (Viking) made me see badminton in a new and sinister light. Andrew Williams’s Witchfinder (Hodder) is a rich, densely plotted version of the fallout from Kim Philby’s defection to the USSR. As persons real and imagined mingle in an atmosphere of deranged suspicion, the reader wonders, among other things, what the interrogators – including Peter Wright of Spycatcher fame – believe themselves to be defending, given their readiness to cede authority to the CIA. If le Carré needs a successor, Williams has all the equipment for the role.’