31 October 2023
ISBN 9781914153204
Hardback 266pp £25/$32
Mandrake of Oxford
You can pluck someone like an instrument if you know the way to tune their heart.
May 1941, Ian Fleming of Naval Intelligence recruits Aleister Crowley to crack the recently captured Rudolf Hess by exploiting their mutual fascination with the occult. To fill in the background to Hess’s disastrous flight, Fleming provides the diary of Albrecht Haushofer, the deputy Führer’s assistant. 1945 finds Crowley in a boarding house in Hastings where he tutors Will, a fledgling priest, in Latin. The victim of a Soviet honey trap, Will steals a file that reveals the devastating consequences of Crowley’s mission and discovers the true identities of the Reception Committee waiting for Hess in Scotland. Is the file genuine or a black-ops fake concocted by British Intelligence? Can a crazed rocket scientist in California supply the answer, or ‘M’, the Beast’s controller? Featuring Dion Fortune, Anthony Blunt, Hitler, Jack Parsons, and two Beatles, Aleister Crowley MI6 is a riveting spy thriller anchored in fact.
Aleister Crowley as himself in all his occult and charismatic glory – a manipulative, overbearing, bizarre yet compelling character. Fiction could hardly have invented him: he is a gift of a character to any novelist & Richard C McNeff has accepted him, unwrapped the parcel and given him his head. —Martin Booth (author of Crowley biography A Magick Life – on Aleister Crowley MI5).
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Hardback £25.00 GBP eBook £6.66 GBP
Richard C McNeff was born in London but lived all over Britain when a child as his father, also called Richard, was a repertory theatre actor who subsequently went into film and television. His mother, Lynne Munn, was a Liverpool-born poet and artist. His father’s eldest brother, Samuel Valentine McNeff, was a wartime major in MI6. After studying English at Sussex University, Richard lived and worked in Barcelona, Amsterdam, the Basque Country, Ibiza, and Baku. He is also the author of Aleister Crowley MI5 (Mandrake of Oxford) and With Barry Flanagan: Travels through Time and Spain (the Lilliput Press), a memoir that grew out of curating shows for the internationally recognised sculptor. He has contributed to the Guardian, Fortean Times, and Boulevard Magenta. He divides his time between London and Andalucía.
www.richardmcneff.co.uk
Related Images:
Check out an interview with author Richard C. McNeff on You Tube, “About Aleister Crowley MI6 The Hess Solution”. Of course, there is no real evidence that Crowley ever actually debriefed Hess. It is all based on a letter Crowley wrote offering his services in interrogating Hess. Mr.McNeff simply saw this angle as a great “What if” Espionage/occult story. The You Tube interview is only a week old. Obviously, this was a promotional gimmick aimed at anyone interested in preordering the book.