Canelo spies a new espionage series from genre-master Alex Gerlis

Publishing Director Michael Bhaskar and Commissioning Editor Craig Lye have acquired WEL rights to a new espionage series by 600,000-copy bestseller Alex Gerlis from Gordon Wise at the Curtis Brown Literary Agency in a four-book deal. The Double Agent series follows two spies, codenamed Archie and Bertie, over a twenty-year period from the build-up to the Second World War through to a thrilling finish at the height of the Cold War.

The first novel, Every Spy a Traitor, opens in 1936. Fear stalks Europe. Treason is in the air. Soviets and Nazis eye each other warily. But British intelligence is still trying to work out who the enemy really is. British spymasters know there is a Russian agent in their ranks, codenamed ‘Archie’. What they don’t know is that there is more than one traitor…

This will be the first series by Alex Gerlis published in hardback editions.

Alex Gerlis was a BBC journalist for nearly thirty years and is the author of eleven espionage thrillers, all published by Canelo. His bestselling novel, The Best of Our Spies is currently being developed as a television series, and was recently placed among Spycast’s Top 50 all-time greatest spy novels, as chosen by their community of spies, past and present. 

Craig Lye says: ‘Alex is simply the master of tense, intricately plotted second world war espionage fiction. With this new series, ambitious in scope and deftly managed in execution, he invites readers into a new world of double agents, spying for both sides, knowing that one false step could mean death. We are delighted to be publishing it at Canelo.’

Alex Gerlis says: ‘I’m very excited about this new series. It’s quite a challenge to write a series which begins before the Second World War and ends twenty years later in the Cold War, but I’ve loved writing it and I hope readers will recognise the scope and ambition of the series and be gripped by the plot.’

Every Spy a Traitor will be published in June 2024, in hardback and ebook, with a paperback edition to follow in October 2024. For more information please contact [email protected]