Adam Devon is a British fighter pilot.
Hannah Shaw is an agent with the Israeli Secret Service.
The timeframe for these two adventures starts in the year 1949. The Second World Was has been over for four years and the danger in the Pacific of Japanese expansionism has changed to also very real threat of Communism. Red China is just coming into existence as Chairman Mao declares the end of the Chinese Civil War and the creation of the People's Republic of China. The struggle between the French control of Vietnam and the demands of Ho Chi Minh is about to explode into major armed conflict. Laos is just forcing its own independence. In the Malay peninsula, the struggle between the native population and the British Empire was intense with the Malayan Emergency, as it was referred to in the U.K., had started the year before.
It is in the middle of that Emergency that we encounter Devon for the first time. He is in the Royal Air Force as a fighter pilot holding the rank of Flight Lieutenant. Flying is the greatest love of this blond-haired, pale blue-eyed young man and he is not looking for any sort of change in his career path when it sort of gets forced on him. Devon will become involved in espionage matters through a moderately circuitous route but his main reason for being given membership in this compendium is Hannah Shaw.
Shaw is, among other things she does for the Israeli Secret Service, a recruiter of talent and it is under that umbrella that she first encounters Devon - though she was more interested in a colleague of his than him - and to say they would quickly move to a much closer relationship is being modest. That will be when the two of them find that they are also very good together in the spy business, not just in connection with the Israelis but also with the British MI6.