Alec Milius is an agent with MI6.
Well, actually, he is and he isn't. A recent college graduate who, at age 24, is living mostly on a very small inheritance from his father and adding to that income with money earned selling advertisement space on a quarterly magazine that has no real subscription list and exists mainly as a means to take money from unsuspecting clients. A meeting with an old friend of his parents results in an offer for a job interview in the Diplomatic Service. In truth it was the British Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6.
Thinking himself about to become a spy, Milius is dejected when he does not make the final cut. Instead, he is offered a chance to go to work with a British oil company operating in the former Soviet republics. But whether it is to spy on the company, or spy for the company, or use the employment to spy on others for others, Milius is not immediately sure.
What is certain to Milius is that his talent and his penchant for lying come in handy. This young man has the bar set very low when it comes to conscience. Falsehoods come off his tongue with such ease that he begins to have doubts about the truth himself. When he learns that he has been, in fact, lied to by British Intelligence, he is not sure whether to be impressed or angry.
As the series progresses, Milius finds himself several years old and on his own, no longer needed by MI-6, but still with his innate desire to lie coupled with an insatiable hunger for secrets. The latter gets him into trouble but the former often gets him out of it, at least partially.