‘The Imitator’ by Rebecca Starford is a page-turning, shocking WW2 spy thriller loosely based on the real-life events of a MI5 female agent based in London in the 1930s and 40s. “I have seen the past – and it works.” Dennis Glover’s satire, ‘Factory 19’, shows what can happen when we idealize the past. The work, while comic, has Orwellian overtones and a latent political message which is in keeping with Glover’s past as a political speech writer.