10 h 10 minAudiobook4 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A false name may keep an agent alive. One wrong word may give him away.
In Okewood of the Secret Service, Valentine Williams follows an agent through the hidden struggle of the First World War. This is a world of borrowed clothes, hurried trains and rooms where speech carries danger. Okewood must rely on disguise and quick thinking, with the threat of discovery close at hand.
The adventure turns on pursuit and deception rather than deep psychology. False identities demand more than a change of clothes: an agent must look, speak and behave like someone else. Williams brings a journalist’s and soldier’s background to a brisk wartime story, where movement matters and a moment’s hesitation can carry a deadly cost.
What you’ll discover
- A war behind the front Enter the secret struggle where an agent’s words can be as dangerous as weapons.
- Disguise as a weapon Follow a hero whose borrowed identity depends on how he looks, speaks and behaves.
- The pull of pursuit Feel the pressure of a plot that keeps danger and quick thinking close together.
- Danger in ordinary places Hurried trains and quiet rooms become places where one mistake can prove fatal.
- Early spy adventure Discover the brisk pleasures of wartime intrigue, false names and a resourceful agent.
Who will love it
For readers who love early spy fiction, wartime settings, and plots driven by disguise and pursuit.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A war fought in the shadows
- Disguise is the agent's chief weapon
- Pace, danger and the thriller's rhythm
- A writer who knew the war
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- Large print hardcover
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Okewood vom Geheimdienst
by Valentine Williams · 1918
An agent works in secret for Britain, navigating false names and rooms where one wrong word can be fatal.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 4
A war fought in the shadows
The First World War was fought in trenches, but it was also fought in offices, ports and railway stations. Each side feared spies, and newspapers fed that fear. Fiction soon took up the subject, and a new kind of hero appeared: the agent who works alone, far from his own army.
Okewood of the Secret Service belongs to this tradition. Its hero serves British intelligence, and the title promises that the story will follow his duty rather than a battle. Readers of the time knew the world it drew on. They had heard of codes, of couriers, of men sent behind enemy lines.
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Who was Valentine Williams?
Valentine Williams was a British journalist and army officer who became a popular writer of thrillers and crime novels. He served in the First World War and died in 1946. He is best remembered for his spy fiction.
What kind of book is Okewood of the Secret Service?
It is a spy thriller set in the time of the First World War. Its hero works for British intelligence, and the story is built on danger, disguise and quick escapes rather than on slow character study.
When was Okewood of the Secret Service written?
It was written in the years after the First World War by Valentine Williams. It is fiction, not a true account, but it draws on the fears and interests of wartime and postwar Britain.
The author
Valentine Williams
1883–1946 · British journalist and novelist
Valentine Williams (1883–1946) was a British journalist and fiction writer. He was born in London and died in New York. He worked as a newspaper correspondent and wrote novels about spies and secret agents. His books include Okewood of the Secret Service, published in 1918.
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