Tim binding's latest novel is a fictional re-creation of the life of Commander Lionel Crabb, a British naval diver who disappeared in the cold, swirling waters of Portsmouth Harbour in 1956. Crabb vanished while spying on the Ordkhonikidze, a Soviet cruiser that had brought Nikita Khrushchev on a goodwill visit to Britain. The espionage mission, ordered by M16 without the knowledge of Anthony Eden, the prime minister, should have been routine. Crabb was an experienced diver who had enjoyed an illustrious underwater career. Eden's fury about the mission, which could have damaged British/Soviet relations, led to a cover-up of Crabb's disappearance. A year later a headless, handless body in a frogman's suit was washed up. Despite the coroner's satisfaction that the body was Crabb's, neither his ex-wife nor his girlfriend could identify it. Speculation about what really happened continues.
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