Author biography & the extraordinary detective story behind the writing of On His Majesty's Secret Service.

Andrew Cook worked for many years as a foreign affairs and defence specialist, and was aide to George Robertson (former Secretary of State for Defence, now Lord Robertson of Port Ellen and Secretary General of NATO) and John Spellar (former Minister of State for the Armed Forces). The contacts he made enabled the author to navigate and gain access to classified intelligence services archives.

During his 20 years researching this book he was only the 5th historian to be given special permission under the 1992 'Waldegrave Initiative' by the Cabinet Office to examine closed MI6 documents on Reilly and operations he took part in that will never be released, documents not seen by any previous biographer of Reilly.

In addition, the author's massive international research project included employing private investigators to track relatives of those touched by Reilly's amazing life, the UK's leading facial reconstruction expert to conclusively prove that Reilly did indeed die at the hands of the Soviets in Russia in 1925. In all, over 2000 closed or unpublished documents were scrutinised in 14 different countries, including those of following secret service organisations: MI5, MI6, the Cheka and OGPU (forerunners of the KGB), CIA, FBI, Gestapo, Deuxieme Bureau (the French secret service) and Japanese Naval Intelligence.

A large number of decendents of people who feature in Reilly's story have also, through painstaking research, been tracked down and interviewed from as far afield as North America and the Ukraine. None of these families (bar one) have previously been located and interviewed. The testimony and co-operation of these families has helped knit together many of the missing pieces in the jigsaw of Reilly's life, not to mention the previously unpublished photographs, letters and leads to further corroborative sources.

The author has also located and examined hundreds of items of 'new' information on Reilly from previously unused or unknown primary sources, held by local and national government, ecclesiastical and professional associations and authorities. Since working directly as a foreign affairs and defence specialist, Andrew Cook has worked as a professional historian in colleges and universities, and is now engaged full time on research and writing.