A new book by Life Fellow Christopher Andrew looks at the life and surprising dual careers of Corpus alumnus Cyril Bertram Mills (m.1955). Although Cyril graduated from Corpus with an MA in Engineering, he went on to become joint director of the Bertram Mills Circus and one of the best known and influential figures in the British entertainment business.

But there was more to Cyril than top hats and elephants. As Christopher Andrew, the official historian of MI6 and the author of 12 books on secret intelligence, reveals in his new book, The Spy Who Came in from the Circus (Biteback Books), Cyril Mills also had a wide-ranging career, top-secret career in British intelligence, obtaining the best aerial intelligence on Nazi rearmament for MI6 before the Second World War; becoming the first case officer to monitor the best double agent (Garbo) of the war after joining MI5; and working part-time during the Cold War 'for MI5 or 6 or both without being paid a penny'.

Remarkably, no word of Mills's secret career appeared in public until he was over eighty. Nobody suspected that the glamorous world of pre-war circus entertainment had been an extraordinarily fitting rehearsal for the lethal arena of deception and surveillance. Christopher Andrew, in collaboration with ex-KGB officers, of histories of Russian intelligence, brings to life one of the most surprising and fascinating careers in British espionage.

The Spy who Came in from the Circus will be serialised in the Daily Mail beginning this Sunday 21 April. An official launch for the book will be held next week at Claridge's in London.

On Friday 26 April, from 17.30-18.30, a special Cambridge Intelligence Seminar featuring Andrew speaking about the book will take place in the McCrum Theatre at Corpus Christi College. No booking is required. Drinks will be served after the talk. 

In a recording of This is Your Life broadcast in 1989 featured Cyril Mills along with many who knew and worked with him both in his role as a circus-owner and a spy.