Heinrich Albert

Commercial Attaché at the German Embassy in Washington and an important financial intermediary for Germany's clandestine activities in neutral America. His briefcase contains rather more than the normal papers of a diplomat.

Anne Banfield

Based upon a real but unidentified female Special Branch officer who worked during the First World War. According to Donald McCormick, she was still living in Portugal in the 1950s as “Madame Hubert, the widow of a Swiss hotelier”. Her real name appears to have been lost.

That slender historical thread became Anne Banfield — and provided the unexpected starting point for Christophe Hubert too. The name “Hubert”, and the reference to her husband as a Swiss hotelier, suggested the fictional Hubert family and their background in the hotel business.

Boissier

Based upon one of two serving officers alleged to have driven around Mainland Orkney following the loss of HMS Hampshire, preventing local people from attempting to rescue survivors. The historical record provides little more than the allegation; the character who appears in the novels is the author's reconstruction of the man who might have stood behind it.

Dr Anton Dilger

American-born physician and microbiologist working secretly for Germany. Dilger brings biological warfare into the clandestine struggle by cultivating anthrax and glanders for use against animals being shipped from America to the Allied armies.

Fritz Joubert Duquesne

Boer adventurer, soldier, spy and implacable enemy of the British Empire. Duquesne's particular hatred of Lord Kitchener makes him useful to German intelligence — and exceptionally dangerous to anyone who gets in his way.

Colonel Henry Farmer

A senior Royal Army Medical Corps officer and gifted physician who helped nurse Hubert back to health after Ypres. Amiable, humane and apparently ill-suited to espionage, Henry nevertheless discovers that war can demand some very strange duties indeed.

Colonel Oswald Fitzgerald

Lord Kitchener's personal military secretary and one of the men closest to him. Formal, fiercely loyal and deeply conscious of his duty to the Field Marshal.

Sean Gallagher

Based upon a real Irish Republican Brotherhood agent reported in contemporary accounts. The surviving record provides only glimpses of the man; the Sean Gallagher who appears in the novels develops that historical figure into a fully realised character.

Martha Held

Former opera singer and formidable hostess whose New York brownstone provides a discreet meeting place for members and supporters of the German diplomatic and intelligence community.

Frederick Hinsch

One of the German agents operating within the extensive sabotage network directed against Allied shipping, factories and war supplies in the United States.

Paul Hilken

A figure within Germany's American sabotage organisation, drawn into the network surrounding the attacks on Allied war supplies and shipping.

Fred Herrmann

An American-born operative fiercely loyal to the country of his German ancestors. Physically intimidating and temperamentally direct, Herrmann is one of the men prepared to turn Germany's secret war in America into a very violent business.

Christophe “Chris” Hubert

A French-Canadian former infantry officer invalided out after being gassed at Ypres and subsequently recruited into MI5. Intelligent, irreverent and stubborn, Hubert has an unfortunate tendency to pursue a problem long after wiser men would have walked away from it.

Admiral Sir John Jellicoe

Commander-in-Chief of Britain's Grand Fleet and the officer upon whose judgement much of Britain's naval war depends.

Emil Jokela

A Finnish member of Baron Otto von Rosen's expedition through the frozen north. Jokela was a real participant in the operation and is named in the report of Norwegian police officer Johan Søhr. His characterisation within the novel necessarily extends beyond the surviving historical record.

Alexander Kassmann

An Austrian-born naturalised American working undercover inside the German sabotage organisation. His attempt to discover more about the mysterious figure known as “Tony” places him in considerable danger.

Major Vernon Kell

Founder and head of MI5. Precise, secretive and outwardly unemotional, Kell sees intelligence as a profession in which the security of the state may demand decisions that his subordinates find considerably harder to accept.

Field Marshal Lord Kitchener

Secretary of State for War and one of the most recognisable men in Britain. The public face of recruitment and a towering figure in the national war effort, his fate lies at the heart of Blackest of Lies.

Paul Koenig

Former private detective and a leading operative in Germany's clandestine campaign against Allied war supplies in the United States. A practical saboteur rather than a drawing-room spy.

Colonel Walter Nikolai

Senior figure in German military intelligence. His organisation sits behind operations stretching from Britain and Scandinavia to the sabotage campaign in the United States.

Pickup

Based upon the second of two serving officers alleged to have driven around Mainland Orkney following the loss of HMS Hampshire, preventing local people from attempting to rescue survivors. As with Boissier, the surviving allegation supplies the historical footprint; the personality and actions surrounding it in Blackest of Lies are fictional reconstruction.

Riordan

A hulking IRB enforcer sent to accompany Sean Gallagher on the journey to Broome. Gallagher is never entirely convinced that his companion is there simply to help.

Baron Otto von Rosen

Swedish aristocrat and committed supporter of Finnish resistance to Russian rule. Von Rosen moves supplies and weapons through the frozen north, where patriotism and German strategic interests make uncomfortable partners.

Admiral Reinhard Scheer

Commander of Germany's High Seas Fleet. A professional naval officer confronted with proposals that push warfare far beyond the boundaries with which even the Great War has made him familiar.

Walter Scheele

German-American chemist associated with the sabotage network in New York. Scheele develops compact incendiary devices intended to ignite cargo aboard ships long after they have left harbour.

Johan Søhr

Norwegian police and counter-intelligence officer whose investigation of suspicious activity in neutral Scandinavia brings Baron von Rosen to British attention.

Alec Sandes

A veteran of the quieter reaches of British naval intelligence. Experienced in routes, paperwork and the construction of convincing official lies, Sandes knows how much damage can be concealed behind an innocent-looking document.

Joan Simpson

Lord Kitchener's personal secretary at the War Office and one of the very few people entrusted with the truth behind Colonel Henry Farmer's extraordinary wartime assignment. Her involvement brings her and Farmer together, and an autumn romance follows. By the opening of The Hidden Hand, Joan is about to become Mrs Henry Farmer — and her wedding provides the setting for another unexpected turn in Hubert and Banfield's careers.

Commander Guy Standing

RNVR officer attached to Britain's foreign intelligence service. Urbane and capable, Standing introduces Hubert and Banfield to the complicated intelligence war being fought in neutral America.

Gustav Steinhauer

Veteran German intelligence officer with long experience of operations against Britain. In wartime he becomes involved in schemes intended to carry the conflict far beyond the conventional battlefield.

Stärky

A member of Baron Otto von Rosen's expedition through the frozen north. Stärky was a real participant in the operation and is named, along with Emil Jokela, in the report of Norwegian police officer Johan Søhr. His characterisation in the novel is necessarily reconstructed from the limited surviving record.

Commander Peter Strasser

Commander of Germany's naval airship force. Aggressive, courageous, technologically minded and impatient with conventional limitations on the use of Zeppelins against Britain.

Sir Basil Thompson

Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard and head of Special Branch. An experienced, forceful intelligence officer whose relationship with Kell combines cooperation with the inevitable friction between their two organisations.

Thomas Tunney

Senior New York police officer and veteran investigator of the German sabotage campaign. Persistent, practical and thoroughly familiar with the bomb-makers operating in his city.

Inspector Vance

A serving Glasgow Police officer identified by Donald McCormick in his account of the events surrounding the loss of HMS Hampshire. Vance was a real police officer; his fuller characterisation and involvement in the events of Blackest of Lies are developed from that historical foundation.

Sir William Wiseman

Senior British intelligence representative in the United States. Wiseman occupies the delicate ground between espionage, diplomacy and the politics of a powerful country still officially neutral in the European war.

Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff

German Ambassador to the United States. Charged with preserving diplomatic relations with neutral America while increasingly dangerous clandestine activity is carried out by men associated with his embassy.

Wolf von Igel

German official drawn into the clandestine organisation left behind after Franz von Papen's departure from the United States. He operates in the increasingly dangerous space between diplomatic respectability and sabotage.

Franz von Papen

German Military Attaché in Washington and a central figure behind Germany's clandestine operations in the United States. His network continues to cause trouble even after his expulsion from the country.