Hugh Hambleton, Spy is a bit sedate for a spy novel, there is little sense of danger or peril in real-time. However, its Heaps' introspection in the third act that brings the story full circle. Heaps is the bystander that slowly comes to the realization that his friend was not who he seemed and neither are those in charge of our national security. Breeze through to the end, which is where this book shines.

A reprint of a 1983 book by Leo Heaps, who was a personal friend of the titular Hugh Hambleton.

Hambleton was a Canadian economist, who seemed to lead a quiet life, until the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (yes, the Mounties..!) contacted Heaps and asked him about Hambleton's life as a KGB spy. This came as a total surprise to Heaps, who then tried to find out what actually happened.

The book goes into great detail how Hambleton turned from a mildmannered academic into a man who, for example, would take home extremely secret documents (a level of security labelled 'cosmic') from his job at NATO, and make photographs of them in his own DIY darkroom, hidden in his house. The copies would find their way to the KGB.

Personally, I like to read espionage non-fiction because it's about personal lines - which lines will you cross, and for what reason? I think we make the mistake to think that there is one main reason why someone becomes a spy, and that there is one almost magic moment when a person thinks "yes, I am a spy!", while the reality is that it happens in small increments. It starts with an innocent sounding request, and bit by bit the requests become more severe. I also think the reasons for spying tend to be a lot more prosaic than we'd like to imagine - someone craves the attention lavished on the spy, someone loves the feeling of being a part of something big, someone loves the thrill of it all. Or someone just really likes the money, of course. I think you'd have a hard time finding many spies that actually care about 'the other side', who really think, say, communism or capitalism specifically, is a swell idea.

Although Hambleton has never really explained why he became a spy, Heaps draws a detailed portrait of the man - someone who likes the thrill of spying, the thrill of being wanted (even if it's by the KGB). A man who thinks little of offering up relationships, with several wives and his children.

The book is well written, very detailed, yet I thought it's not the most interesting spy story. I sometimes got the feeling that the story could've been told in a more compact, effective way, that Heaps was padding a bit, here and there.

At the end, there remains an emptiness at the centre of the Hambleton portrait. But maybe there's a kind of emptiness at the centre of most spies.

Spy stories are always fascinating as it seems so impossible to uncover motives. What is it exactly that makes someone become a traitor? What is about them that makes them willing to betray their country? Author Leo Heaps does his best here but ultimately Canadian spy Hugh Hambleton remains elusive. Nevertheless this is a fascinating account, very well researched, and made even more fascinating by the fact that Heaps actually knew Hambleton and was able to visit him in prison after his arrest. So there’s an immediacy about this account which I very much enjoyed. Hambleton was eventually released back to Canada and didn't die until 1995 so it still seems very recent and relevant history. A great read.

Hugh Hambleton, Spy
By Leo Heaps

This piece of nonfiction tells the story of a friendship. This was a friendship that stood the test of time, but took a shocking turn with the news of Hambleton’s confessed identity as a Russian spy. Heaps gives an honest rendering of his relationship with this lifelong friend and l, apparently, traitor to his country, trying to piece together signs that he may have missed over the decades. This will be a great read for those interested in espionage and international relations.

This is an engaging book about a fascinating case that has (at least in America) largely passed out of public memory. The author, Leo Heaps, understands that when it comes to spies, 'why' is just as fascinating to the reader as the 'how', and he writes in a perceptive and engaging way that will keep your attention till the very end.

The book should be approached with this caveat in mind: Heaps gathered his tale largely from the spy himself (who he knew personally, part of what gained his interest in the case in the first place) and tells it from a storyteller's perspective- he couldn't or wouldn't back up his assertions through what we'd now term investigative journalism (the book was originally published in the mid 2000's). I personally came to believe in Heap's integrity- I believe that he believed in what he wrote. But no matter how perceptive he was, Heaps was dealing with a man who had a thirty year spying career. and who Heaps himself describes as a master of misdirection: who's to say Heaps himself didn't end up unwittingly playing exactly the part Hambleton wished him to?

I recommend this book regardless. It's a fascinating read and provides insight of it's own kind, and may just ignite a desire to know more of this time period.