GOD'S DEFECTOR: The Case of the Missing Priest.

First edition, first printing. Publisher's original blue cloth with black titles to the spine, in the Alun Hood illustrated dustwrapper. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, with light bumping to the spine ends and corners, the contents are clean throughout and without inscriptions or stamps. Complete with the fine dustwrapper, that is lightly creased to the spine ends and otherwise free from fading, loss or tears. Not price-clipped (£3.25 to the front flap).

Bingham was originally a journalist at the Hull Daily Mail, serving in the Royal Engineers at the beginning of the Second World War and subsequently recruited by MI5, where he worked alongside David Cornwell (better known as John Le Carre), who later suggested Bingham to be the inspiration for his character George Smiley. Bingham was the author of seventeen crime novels (this being his thirteenth), two of which were adapted for film: 'Fragment of Fear' (1960) starring David Hemmings as Tim Brett; 'Five Roundabouts to Heaven' which was originally aired as an episode of 'The Alfred Hitchcock Hour' under the title 'The Tender Poison' (December 1962) and later the basis for 'Married Life' (2007).