''The Janus Man'' is a

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, k ...

thriller novel by British novelist

Raymond Harold Sawkins Raymond Harold Sawkins (14 July 1923 – 23 August 2006) was a British novelist, who mainly published under the pseudonym Colin Forbes, but also as Richard Raine, Jay Bernard and Harold English. He published only three of his first books under hi ...

, written under the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

of Colin Forbes. The book is set in the period it was written, and concerns Soviet infiltration into the

Secret Intelligence Service The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

during the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

. The book is the fourth of twenty-four books written by Sawkins under Colin Forbes in the "Tweed and Co." series. Forbes published one edition of the "Tweed and Co." series each year from 1982 until his death in 2006. The story concerns treason and the rooting out of a traitor and double agent among members of the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as the SIS or MI6. The protagonist is a man known as Tweed, and the book follows his efforts to investigate the clumsily disguised murder of colleague Ian Fergusson, dubbed an "accident" by authorities, whilst in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

, Germany, and the reasons for his killing. Circumstances lead him to believe that the only way the enemy (the Soviet Union) could have intercepted Ferguson on his mission would have been to have a double agent stationed within the SIS. As he attempts to discover the identity of "The

Janus In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus ( ; la, Ianvs ) is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces. The month of January is named for Janu ...

Man who faces both East and West", he tracks sources of information in Moscow,

Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the stat ...

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

and

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

to hunt down the killer of Ferguson.The Institute, pg. 27-8R.R. Bowker Company, pg. 35 The book confronts several issues facing both Britain and the Soviet Union at the time, such as treason and the inability to trust even friends in times of uncertainty and war. People living at the time were also mentioned in the book, such as former U.S. President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

and Soviet leader

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

. It was well received by critics, and was praised by publications such as the ''Sunday Mirror''.Forbes; blurb cites the ''

Sunday Mirror The ''Sunday Mirror'' is the Sunday sister paper of the ''Daily Mirror''. It began life in 1915 as the ''Sunday Pictorial'' and was renamed the ''Sunday Mirror'' in 1963. In 2016 it had an average weekly circulation of 620,861, dropping marke ...

'': "Colin Forbes has no equal."

Notes

References

* * * 1987 British novels Cold War spy novels British thriller novels Works published under a pseudonym William Collins, Sons books {{ColdWar-novel-stub