The Hess Solution
Softcover 9781914153235 266pp £12.99/$20
Hardcover Isbn 9781914153204. 266pp £25/$30
(Circa 65,000 words)
You can pluck someone like an instrument if you know the way to tune their heart.
In May 1941, Ian Fleming of Naval Intelligence recruits Aleister Crowley to crack the recently captured Rudolf Hess by exploiting their mutual fascination with the occult. To fill in the background to Hess’s disastrous flight, Fleming provides the diary of Albrecht Haushofer, Deputy Führer’s assistant. 1945 finds Crowley in a boarding house in Hastings where he tutors Will, a fledgling priest, in Latin. Will stumbles on a file that reveals the devastating consequences of Crowley’s mission and discovers the true identities of the Reception Committee waiting for Hess in Scotland. Is the file genuine or a black-ops fake concocted by British Intelligence? Can a crazed rocket scientist in California supply the answer, or ‘M’, the Beast’s controller? Featuring Dion Fortune, Anthony Blunt, Hitler, Jack Parsons, and the Beatles, Aleister Crowley MI6 is a riveting spy thriller anchored in fact.
Aleister Crowley as himself in all his occult and charismatic glory – a manipulative, overbearing, bizarre yet compelling character. Fiction could hardly have invented him: he is a gift of a character to any novelist & Richard C McNeff has accepted him, unwrapped the parcel and given him his head. —Martin Booth (author of Crowley biography A Magick Life – on Aleister Crowley MI5).
& Elsewhere (supplementary postage may be required if very far-flung)
Synopsis
On 21 May 1941, Ian Fleming of Naval Intelligence lunches with Aleister Crowley in Mayfair. Crowley has offered to interview Rudolf Hess, who has been captured near Dungavel, the Duke of Hamilton’s Scottish estate, eleven days before. Their shared affinity for the occult will enable the Beast to draw out the German’s secrets. Fleming agrees and gives the Beast the 1939-41 diary of Albrecht Haushofer, Hess’s principal adviser. This gives the background to the deputy führer’s flight and describes the involvement of Karl Ernst Krafft, a Swiss astrologer, who has an uncanny knack of making accurate predictions.
On 1 February 1945, Crowley moves to Netherwood, a boarding house in Hastings. Will, the teenage handyman, intends to become a Catholic priest but is distracted by a maid called Maria. Crowley tutors him in Latin. Left alone in Crowley’s room, Will stumbles on a file that describes the Beast’s wartime encounter with Hess. It is called the‘Z’ File, ‘Z’ being Hess’s codename. Crowley has capitalised on his resemblance to Churchill and deceived Hess into believing he is the prime minister. Hess reveals the date of the attack on Russia.
Several visitors come to Netherwood to see the Beast: Dion Fortune; Frieda Lady Harris, creator of the Thoth Tarot paintings; a female Oxford professor researching a book on the characteristics of a magician; John Symonds, his future biographer; and a pupil of Crowley called Maxwell Knight. Knight is, in fact, the spymaster ‘M’ who runs a division of MI5.
A Hungarian professor and his wife come to stay at Netherwood. They are Soviet agents hunting the ‘Z’ File as Stalin believes it proves collusion between British Intelligence, Churchill, and Hess. Will is the victim of a honeytrap and agrees to fetch it. He discloses the plot to ‘M’. At the handover on the coast, commandos ambush and kill the Hungarian couple. In disgust, Will renounces the idea of becoming a priest.
Crowley dies at Netherwood on 1 December 1947. Will finds a silk handkerchief under his deathbed inscribed with a map of Dungavel and Hess’s alias. Will learns from ‘M’ that Crowley has sent the ‘Z’ File to Jack Parsons, an American disciple and rocket scientist. Will visits him and his wife Cameron in Pasadena in 1952. He and Jack perform an Enochian ritual in the desert. Ten days later Parsons blows himself up before he can give Will the file as promised.
In April 1965 Will is working in the music business. The year is one of rapid growth for the counterculture that Crowley seems to have prophesied. Will works with the bandleader Graham Bond, who claims to be Crowley’s son. Later in a Soho club, Will encounters John Lennon and George Harrison on their first LSD trip. The next day he runs into Maxwell Knight who tells him the ‘Z’ File was fabricated by Ian Fleming with the intention of fooling the Nazis and the Soviets. Knight alerts Will to a radio reading of Albrecht Haushofer’s 1945 diary. This covers the German’s arrest, imprisonment, composition of a famous sonnet sequence, and execution. It also casts more light on his dealings with Hitler and Hess.
In May Knight invites Will to his suburban house. Will intends to use the silk map to challenge Knight’s assertion the ‘Z’ File is a fake. While there, Will accidentally comes across a photo taken at Dungavel on the night Hess was supposed to arrive. Reluctantly, ‘M’ reveals what really happened and the true identities of Hess’s reception committee.