Lieutenant Colonel Neil (Billy) McLean, DSO, had a conventional upbringing in England and the Highlands, but it was never his nature to conform. Commissioned into a crack regiment shortly before the War, he found regular soldiering too dull and volunteered for paramilitary work. He commanded a general unit in Abyssinia and organized partisan resistance in Albania. After the War he became an MP and managed to combine parliamentary activity with adventurous fact-finding tours all over the world, particularly in the Middle East, where he made friends with several monarchs and heads of state. These contacts enabled him to play a leading part in saving North Yemen from the surge of Marxism that engulfed many other countries in the region. This was his crowning act, and for the rest of his life he continued to serve as an informal roving ambassador furthering British interests wherever he could. Billy McLean kept prolific records of his meetings and conversations with a great many important political and military figures, and Xan Fielding makes full use of these records in this biography.