BEYOND ENKRIPTION & THE BURLINGTON FILES
Beyond Enkription is the first tome Bill has written in the series. The series is about the Burlington family and their ubiquitous relationships with state backed intelligence agencies over many decades. The series covers events involving the Burlington family ranging from the First World War to 9/11 and the related Nisha incidents and beyond.
Our story starts in 1974 and is loosely based on authentic events and characters some of which rocked and shocked the contemporary establishment. There is no way we could make this stuff up unless we were on weed or worse! You can sigh with relief though. There won’t be one book published for each year since 1974.
The discerning landed gentry might call the first book in the series a novel. Connoisseurs might call it an old fashioned journal. The less polite hoi polloi might conjure up more disrespectful descriptions. If pushed, we might irreverently describe it as a “novelog”, a novel and weblog wrapped as one, rather like a diary about a fish and chip takeaway but without too much salt and vinegar to keep it all tasteful.
You may find it is a tad like reading a TV series about a dynastic family such as the feuding Ewings in Dallas. There are two differences though. The first book in the series is about intrigue and duplicity in the world of espionage and primarily based on actual diaries of real people and newspaper clippings. Being based on diaries and newspaper articles the book is a trifle episodic but that’s life. The rest of the series will be based on diaries, media articles and even blogs once we enter the internet era.
Of course, we could have padded the first book in the series inside out, like Dallas in 2012 or more recent versions of Sherlock Holmes, with family reunions, birthday parties, weddings and funerals as well as the mandatory resurrection of characters long presumed dead. We didn’t. It would have become repetitious like the lives of some of us whose main purpose in reading is to escape such quotidian boredom.
The first book includes obtuse information already in the public domain and secrets exhumed from underneath long forgotten tombstones. In their prime, a few members of the Burlingtons were household names in Anglo-American and opposing intelligence agency circles. Other family members spent most of their lives hiding behind a parliament of pseudonyms, spurning any form of recognition, honours or medals.
The series should be illuminating for most readers as we have all shared life in the ordinary world the Burlingtons inhabited. It’s just that we may have missed the sinister world in the floors below and above the one we live on. In any event, you will be served up an intriguing insight into the truly tortuous goings on inside intelligence agencies.
That insight remains relevant today. There will always be traitors, double agents, informants and whistle blowers. Just think of Edward Snowden in 2013. Most of those descriptions, and worse besides, have been attributed to him after his revelations about modern day espionage. Maybe the most telling open secrets about Mr Snowden are that despite being a US citizen working on NSA secrets he did a runner to China then Russia of all places and accepted honours in Russia, Germany and elsewhere.
Determining his motivation may not be quite as simple as he would have you believe. Maybe he is the real thing: tinker, traitor, thief and spy. After all, he’s admitted to the first three!
For all we know you may look upon the likes of Snowden as heroes or traitors. So be it. The first book and the rest of the series show how hard it is to distinguish between good and evil, rapscallions and traitors. It is a grey world with too many shades to tot up.
LEGAL NOTICES
ALL CHARACTERS IN THE PUBLICATION BEYOND ENKRIPTION AND THE SERIES CALLED THE BURLINGTON FILES ARE FICTIONAL OR FICTITIOUS AND ANY SIMILARITY OR RESEMBLANCE TO REAL PERSONS, LIVING OR DEAD IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL, NOT INTENDED AND SHOULD NOT BE INFERRED.
WHILE, AS IN ALL FICTION, THE LITERARY PERCEPTIONS AND INSIGHTS ARE LOOSELY BASED ON EXPERIENCE, ALL NAMES, CHARACTERS, PLACES, SITUATIONS AND INCIDENTS IN THE PUBLICATION BEYOND ENKRIPTION AND THE SERIES CALLED THE BURLINGTON FILES ARE EITHER PRODUCTS OF THE AUTHOR’S IMAGINATION OR ARE USED FICTITIOUSLY.
