New spy novel set in Surrey Benedictine monastery

A new novel out this week: 'The Devil's Sandbag' about an undercover MI6 agent, is partly set in St Augustine's Abbey, Chilworth.

Author Sheila Longman used the Covid lockdown to do some writing. She began with a memoir of her spiritual journey but felt she could not share such a personal document which included information about her relatives. Instead she decided to use her personal experiences of education and travel to write a novel. She ended up writing four. Three of them are now being published by Austin Macauley.

'The Devil's Sandbag' is set in Aachen in Germany and Surrey. The title is taken from a myth about Charlemagne's deal with the Devil to build the cathedral. The sandbags were the efforts of the Devil to destroy the city and its cathedral. As all his efforts were thwarted, so the undercover agents attempting to prevent the acts of Marxist terrorism in the 1970s, (the Baader Meinhof gang) took the myth as a symbol of their own successes which came at great personal cost.

Recovery, healing and forgiveness take place in our Surrey area as the ex-agents encounter the love of God at St Augustine's Abbey, Chilworth and learn to have hope for the future.

As a widow, Dorothea started attending some churches to enjoy the music her organist husband used to play. At Chilworth's St Augustine's Abbey, she loved the peace of the Benedictine liturgy and gradually got to know some of the priests from the community. Her ex-controller accompanied her and was struck by the phrase "And my souls shall be healed." Ignorant of the meaning of the liturgy, desperate for help, he turns to a priest for spiritual guidance.

The Devil's Sandbags is available to buy on Amazon and via WH Smith, Waterstones and good booksellers. Buy via AmazonSmile and choose 'Trustees of St Augustine's Abbey Ramsgate' and Amazon donates to St Augustine's Abbey, Chilworth.