Francis Clifford was the pen name for Arthur Thompson (1917-1975) the author of a number of crime and espionage novels from the 1950s through to the early 70s before his untimely death.

All Men are Lonely Now was first published in 1967 and reissued by the Companion Book Club the same year. It is quite a clever play on the standard espionage trope; a mole at the heart of secret intelligence, an affair with a secretary and political infighting and manoeuvring to discover who is at the heart of the deception.

The story begins with a young British agent tasked with making contact with a defecting East German scientist, and to track down the mole behind the leaking of information about a top secret British laser-guided missile known as ‘Roman Candle’.

I enjoyed it, David Lancaster, the central character leaves the reader guessing and the affair with Catherine Tierney is an important aspect of the story. Their affair is well written, garnering sympathy in different ways as the story plays out and Clifford successfully builds the tension leading to a memorable final chapter.

This sits above the majority of the espionage thrillers of the period, it is a well-crafted story written by an author drawing upon his experience in the Special Operations Executive of the British Army during the Second World War. The dialogue is convincing and the plot strong enough to hold the reader’s attention to the end. Well worth searching out a copy.