ELENA STANDISH

Elena Standish is an agent of MI6.

The year we first start following her adventures in 1933. Elena is not an operative at first but she will be pulled into the clandestine work of spy-hunting largely because of her current occupation which is that of photographer. Her love of the profession is intense and she finds considerable pleasure in capturing a moment in time.

28-year-old Standish "had started out after university in a high position in the Foreign Office, due not only to her excellent academic record, but in large part to her father's position over the years as British ambassador in several of the most important cities in Europe: Berlin, Paris, and Madrid in particular." Then a relationship with a man named Aiden had changed all that when he "betrayed them all and she had been stupid enough to help him, albeit unwittingly". She was asked to leave her position. Luckily she had her skill with a camera to fall back on.

Standish, the daughter of a British diplomat father and an American heiress mother, is described as being tall and lean and elegant with "a certain grace", good looking but not exactly beautiful with blue eyes she thinks of as ordinary and hair that was nearly but not quite blonde. She is single and always has been, considering herself one of the 'surplus' women in Britain, meaning "surplus to requirements because there were no men (after the War) for them to marry".

Standish will get involved in the espionage world when taking a spur-of-the-moment train trip back to England if only to spend just a little more time with an interesting man she had met while on a photo-assignment in Italy. She would only later find that her heritage had its own history in the clandestine world, including a paternal grandfather who had once, "unbeknownst to his family", been the head of MI6.

Once she is drawn in, though, she finds that she has entered a profession that is every bit as interesting and captivating as her photography. She also learns that taking a photo does not normally put your life in peril while spying for England against Germany's Gestapo always does.

The late Anne Perry, author of these terrific adventures of Elena Standish, was "noted for her memorable characters, historical accuracy and exploration of social and ethical issues", as Fantastic Fiction so correctly phrased it. Back in the Eighties I spent many hours in the 19th Century English world of Inspector Pitt and his always entertaining and inquisitive wife Charlotte. I only read one or two of her other major character, the Victorian-era detective William Monk but I enjoyed them.

Late in her life, she moved her period writing up a few decades to be during or shortly after the First World War but her devotion to detail and accuracy remained solidly intact. When you read these books about Standish taking place a decade and a half after that War and less than a decade before the start of the Second, you truly find yourself in the period.

Throw in the fact that Standish is a very interesting character and you have a winner of an historical spy series.