Charles Cumming is a contributing editor of The Week magazine, and occasionally writes book reviews for The Mail on Sunday. In the summer of 1995, Charles was approached for recruitment by the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). A year later he moved to Montreal where he began working on a novel based on his experiences with MI6. A Spy By Nature was bought in a two-book deal by Penguin in 1999. In 2001, Charles moved to Madrid with his wife. His second novel, The Hidden Man, was published in the summer of 2003. A sequel to A Spy By Nature, entitled The Spanish Game, was published in 2006.