Professor Alfred Vicary

Alfred Vicary is the protagonist of this novel and is the man the author considers an "unlikely spy." An entrenched academic and professor of history at University College, Vicary is pulled into the war efforts by his longtime friend Winston Churchill. His thoroughness and attention to detail, combined with his World War I experience as a courier in the intelligence service for Britain, brings Vicary into MI5, and he is assigned the task of locating German spies.

Vicary's lessons in history alerted him to the dangers of Hitler well before the rest of Europe was fully aware. Suddenly, as the threat of war increases, Vicary's life changes from the dull and practiced routine of a college professor to a vital member of MI5's efforts to eradicate British soil of German infiltrators.

Vicary was one of the thousands of British citizens pulled into the war efforts...