Memoirs of a Kenyan Spymaster

Bart Joseph Kibati, who started dreaming as a schoolboy of becoming a James Bond-type intelligence agent and rose to become a deputy director of intelligence with the notorious Special Branch, the predecessor of the National Intelligence Service, tells all in this first-ever memoir by a top-level Kenyan spymaster. He served in the intelligence community for nearly 30 years. With a rare sense of humour and irony, a scrupulous attention to detail and sense of history, and a seriousness that can only come from former intelligence agent, he gives an anything goes’ account of his life and experiences, from his humble beginnings and life in a white settlers farm in the 1950s during the height of the Mau Mau uprising to schooling in Mang'u High School. He gives us sparkling snippets about his family and his career, and lets us into the secrets and intrigue of the intelligence community, as well as the politics and intrigues of the time including everything he knew from smuggling coffee from Uganda to grabbing plots in Kenya. In a no holds barred account, he tells not just about his work as a spy but also about Kenya of those days. His memoirs are an account of not only of his work as Special Branch officer but also a political and social history of Kenya. He shows us, with surprising candour and some home truths, how far we have come. This book is a must-read for historians, political scientists, journalists, policemen, and indeed all Kenyans who love their country