Adam Sisman reveals the man behind the bestselling persona in this authorized biography, shining a spotlight on David John Moore Cornwell, an expert at hiding in plain sight. Of course, the pseudonym John le CarrÔe has helped to keep the public at a distance. During the 1950s and the 1960s, Cornwell worked for the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service, and began writing novels using his now famous name. Sisman probes Cornwell's unusual upbringing, abandoned by his mother at the age of only five and raised by his con man father (when not in prison), and explores his background in British intelligence, as well as his struggle to become a writer, and his personal life. Sisman has had unfettered access to le CarrÔe's private archive, talked to the most important people in his life, and interviewed the man himself at length