'Love and Deception: Philby in Beirut is a racy confection of known facts and new insights, woven into a surprisingly sympathetic account of the alcohol-fuelled love affair that lit up Philby's last years in the West' George Carey, BBC producer of "The spy Who Went into the Cold"

'The true story of Kim Philby as told by James Hanning surpasses the best spy fiction' Edward Wilson

'James Hanning has unearthed much new information and has written a book of real power' Richard Frost

Love and Deception is the extraordinary story of Eleanor, an able, cultured American woman living in the espionage hot spot of 1950s Beirut and - despite herself - falling in love with the kindest, most sensitive of men, a Lebanon-based journalist with a mysterious past. Unknown to her, the young, idealistic Kim Philby had signed up to help the Russians fight fascism in the 1930s and was to become the 20th century's most notorious double agent. But not only did he adore and marry her - just as the British authorities were closing in on him - but their love survived the most shattering of calamities.

Drawing on some of those closest to the main players, Love and Deception sheds new light on the love of Philby's life and breaks remarkable new ground in revealing the loyalty of his Cambridge contemporaries and the failure of the British authorities to convict them