Alec Milius Books in Order

The Alec Milius novels show the spy world from the perspective of someone who never quite belongs in it. When the series opens in A Spy by Nature, Alec is a restless graduate of the London School of Economics working a shabby marketing job and wondering if life has already passed him by. A family friend opens a door into the British intelligence services, and Alec leaps at the chance without really understanding what he is stepping into.

He does not make it all the way through the formal MI6 recruitment process, but his would‑be handlers find another use for him. Pushed into a role at a British oil company with interests in the Caspian Sea, he is asked to befriend staff at a rival American firm and feed information back to London. What begins as office gossip and small lies soon deepens into industrial espionage linked to high‑stakes energy deals and the agendas of both MI6 and the CIA.

Alec’s great strength — and weakness — is his talent for deceit. He lies to colleagues, lovers, and himself, telling each person a slightly different story and convincing himself he can keep it all straight. As the pressure mounts in A Spy by Nature, the difference between professional cover and personal identity blurs, and the fallout of his choices leaves him both traumatised and dangerous.

In The Spanish Game six years have passed. Alec has been cut loose by the Service and is living under his own name in Madrid, working as a researcher for a private bank and trying to pretend he is a normal expatriate. In reality he still scans every street for surveillance, drinks too much, and assumes that enemies on both sides of the Atlantic might surface at any time.

Sent to the Basque Country on a routine work trip, he meets Mikel Arenaza, a former member of the separatist group ETA who is trying to live a quieter life. When Mikel disappears and a prominent politician goes missing, Alec is drawn back into clandestine activity, only this time he has no official backing, no legal cover, and no one to call if things go wrong.

Across the two books Cumming uses Alec’s unreliable narration to keep readers slightly off‑balance. You are never entirely sure how much of what he reports is true, or whether he is manipulating you as skilfully as he manipulates the people around him. The series is less about high‑tech gadgets or spectacular action than about the psychology of lying for a living, making it a strong choice for readers who like their espionage slow‑burning and morally tangled.