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Aly Monroe was born and educated in England, the daughter of a mathematician and a mother of Italian extraction. She trained in linguistics, specialising in phonetics, and has worked as a voice-coach with Spanish actors, and also performed the voice-over for a US special on female victims of the Atocha bombings. Aly has lived in several countries, but mostly in Spain, and speaks several languages.
The Maze of Cadiz is Aly's first novel, part of a projected series that begins during the Second World War and follows the career of an extraordinary young Englishman, the spy Peter Cotton.
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Featured Title The Maze of Cadiz is a literary spy thriller, in the classic English tradition of Graham Greene, John Le Carre and Eric Ambler.
Peter Cotton, a young Intelligence officer, is sent to Spain in September 1944. The war is drawing to a close and General Franco is edging closer to the Allies. Peter Cotton has been sent to investigate the death of the British agent in Cadiz, a man called May.
May has spent much of the war monitoring the activities of the supposedly neutral Spanish. Have they been smuggling raw materials to the Germans, in strict violation of the terms of neutrality? Even as Cotton gets on the train in Madrid to begin the long, hot journey to Cadiz, he knows he is being watched. And when he arrives in the rundown port, its inhabitants almost on the brink of starvation, he can tell that his visit has been expected.
Cotton is not the only person with an interest in finding out what May has been up to. What he discovers amid the stifling heat and dust could just tilt the emerging balance of post-war power.
This is the first in a series of novels featuring Peter Cotton and charting the waning of British influence in the post-colonial world.
Publication Date: Autumn 2008
UK Publisher: John Murray
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