FROM THE INTRODUCTION BY John Le Carré "This novel comprises some of the best work of an extremely gifted and perhaps under-regarded British crime novelist . . . What gave John Bingham his magic was something we look for in every writer, too often in vain: an absolute command of the internal landscape of his characters, acutely observed by a humane but wonderfully corrosive eye". Michael Sibley and John Prosset shared a history that dated back to their first years at boarding school, and so the news of Prosset's murder came as a great shock to his old friend - especially because Sibley had been staying only the day before at Prosset's country house, where the body was found. When the police arrive to question him in connection with the murder, Sibley finds himself lying about his recent visit, and thus begins to reveal the true nature of a longstanding but volatile friendship, fraught with mutual deception and distrust. As he tells his version of the truth to the police - and to the reader - Sibley makes the first of many fateful mistakes and finds himself not only under suspicion, but a primary suspect in the investigation. Seen through the eyes of Sibley himself, My Name Is Michael Sibley is a mesmerizing account of murder, as the narrator purposefully attempts to elude the police and prove his innocence to the reader in the same breath.
About the Author: John Bingham was the pen-name and family name of Lord Clanmorris. Born in York in 1908, he was educated at Cheltenham College and in France and Germany. One of his first jobs was as a reporter on the Hull Daily Mail and also as a feature writer for the Sunday Dispatch. On the outbreak of the Second World War he joined the Royal Engineers, moving in 1940 to work in the War Office. From 1950 until the late seventies he worked in the Ministry of Defence. My Name is Michael Sibley was his first novel, published in 1952. On the whole Bingham bypassed the usual crime-writing tricks of the trade to evoke surprise or mystery; instead he brought a new approach to crime fiction by emphasizing psychological realism. As Bingham himself explained: 'I am not so much interested in who committed, say, the murder, but in the psychological build-up, whether the murder will, in fact, be committed, and whether the criminal will be caught.' John Bingham wrote a total of seventeen crime novels and espionage thrillers over a thirty-year period. He was married to the playwright Madeleine Bingham and is the father of novelist Charlotte Bingham. He died in 1988. John le Carré is the internationally bestselling author of many crime thrillers, including Smiley's People, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.