This concerns publication of a first spy novel, titled The Most Difficult Thing, by one of Kim Philby's descendants.
Having Kim's surname probably wouldn't hurt sales of one's first spy novel.
Kim Philby rose to head the Counter-Intelligence and anti-Soviet section(s) of MI6/SIS (reportedly organising the killing of many Russians who sought help from MI6). He also did damage as main liaison man in Washington DC between MI6 and the CIA. Kim Philby infamously worked for the KGB as a sleeper, long-term mole then occasional lecturer at KGB college, during his privileged career from 1933 until his death in Moscow in 1988.
In an interview the new novelist recalled that her father/Kim’s son “never said anything against Kim”. Why the hell not?!
One of Kim Philby’s most infamous acts was making possibly the torture and death of up to thousands of anti-communist nationalists in the late 1940s/early 1950s in the Soviet Bloc. This occurred in the Baltic states, Ukraine (then Soviet territory) and Albania (the last under MI6/CIA Operation Valuable).
Of Albania one of many an incidents in the early 1950s is reported in a 1994 article “Profits and losses of treachery: Victims of Kim Philby's betrayals are staking a claim to the cash realised...” In that article communist Albanian police acting on Kim Philby’s information to the Soviets, ambushed 12 young anti-communist nationalists parachuted into Albania under Valuable...
“the [Albanian] police were waiting for them with open arms. Four were burnt to death in a house, six were shot dead and...[another agent] was caught, tortured and put on public trial in...October 1951. [The Albanian anti-communist nationalist exposed by Kim Philby] “spent decades being starved and beaten in various prison camps. And now, 43 years later..." [in 1994 he was reportedly still alive and living in Albania.]
I wonder how many of the tortured are still alive?