Nigel West is a military historian specialising in security and intelligence issues. He was voted “the experts’ expert” by a panel of other spy writers in The Observer in November 1989, and the Sunday Times has commented: “His information is so precise that many people believe he is the unofficial historian of the secret services. West’s sources are undoubtedly excellent. His books are peppered with deliberate clues to potential front-page stories.”

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In 2003, he was awarded the US Association of Former Intelligence Officers’ first Lifetime Literature Achievement Award. Until 2015, he lectured at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies in Alexandria, Virginia.