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It’s worth noting, for proper context, that Maugham entered the SIS at a moment when British intelligence was still defining itself. The machinery was new, the methods untested, and the moral boundaries porous. Field agents were rarely briefed on the larger picture, and even the men running operations were feeling their way through a fog of hasty improvisations. That atmosphere of uncertainty — precise work done for imprecise ends — is the soil from which Ashenden grows. Maugham wasn’t inventing a spy; he was distilling the strange mixture of tedium, danger, and ethical murk he had lived through. In the preface for the book’s 1941 reissue, Maugham underscores that tedium, “The work of an agent in the Intelligence Department is on the whole extremely monotonous. A lot of it is uncommonly useless. The material it offers for stories is scrappy and pointless . . . ”

Eric Ambler, introducing his 1965 anthology To Catch a Spy, notes that while there are a few spy stories that predate Ashenden, Maugham’s creation is “the first fictional work on the subject by a writer of stature with first-hand knowledge of what he is writing about.”

Robert Calder, in his biography of Maugham, sharpens the point: “Ashenden presented for the first time a totally different picture of the life of a secret agent . . . It is the first exposure of what espionage really means—not romance, but boredom, callousness, and dehumanisation.”

And contemporary readers noticed that harsh reality from the outset, as the Times Literary Supplement for April 12, 1928, wrote: “Never before or since has it been so categorically demonstrated that counter-intelligence work consists often of morally indefensible jobs not to be undertaken by the squeamish or the conscience-stricken.”

And it’s Calder who identifies where that bleak clarity reaches its peak: “The most powerful dramatisation of the callousness of the ethics of espionage is the episode where Ashenden accompanies the ‘Hairless Mexican,’ a professional killer, on a mission to prevent an enemy emissary from reaching his contacts in Rome.”

An assessment echoed by a 1928 Buffalo Times reviewer who declared the Hairless Mexican “so extraordinary a creation that he is worth the price of the book.”

We Heathens wholeheartedly agree with both observations, which is why we have extracted the story to create this standalone Short, letting its cold precision stand stripped of the surrounding tales.

In Heathen-speak: this tale, on its own, ’tis a doozy!

In Maugham’s book, the story of the “Hairless Mexican” comprises Chapters 4 through 6, which we have renumbered, here, as Parts 1 through 3 — and, concerning the text, since Maugham was English we have retained all of his British spellings; however we have modified some hyphenated words so as to bring them more inline with modern standards: to-day is now today, to-morrow has become tomorrow, and so on. Likewise with words which were once two but are now one: good night has become goodnight, for ever is now forever, etc.

Though the true majority of our work lies in the 101 footnotes we’ve appended throughout the text for context, clarity, and commentary where necessary.

Heathenry: Thoughts on the Text
“The Hairless Mexican“

1. The Hairless Mexican
2. The Dark Woman
3. The Greek

“A breath-catcher.” —The New York Times

“Thrilling and absorbing.” —Louisville Times

“Provides some highly delicious entertainment . . . the Hairless Mexican — this character is so extraordinary a creation that he is worth the price of the book.” —The Buffalo Times

“The author of Of Human Bondage is at his best in portraying the multitude of types encountered in the dangerous and stealthy work of espionage.” —Forth Worth Star-Telegram

“A sharply etched, often tense account of some of the important things that happen far away from battlefields when nations go to war.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer

“There is no question that the character portrayal of the hairless Mexican . . . stands out as of paramount interest — a man to revolt, to startle and disgust, but never to bore.” —The Houston Post

“Ashenden, the British secret agent, is one of Maugham’s most striking characterizations . . . It is not difficult to see that he has fashioned his book from the stuff of his own experience.” —The Houston Chronicle

“Less than a novel . . . more than a thriller. Just when one is on the point of remarking how ingeniously a dramatic situation is contrived in this story, or how strikingly a character is invented, the thought suggest itself that perhaps, after all, the dramatic situation, the striking character, were realities and that Mr. Maugham has not much changed them. His ‘Hairless Mexican,’ so perfectly undertaking murder in order that a few scraps of paper shall go to London instead of Berlin, would be impressive but incredible in any other story.” —Harold A. Small, San Francisco Chronicle

The Hairless Mexican

Heathen Short #7
Published: January 7, 2026
Format: Paperback
Retail: $7.95
ISBN-13: 9798900750071
Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.175 inches
Weight: 3 oz
Cover: Matte Finish
Interior: Black & White on Cream Paper
Pages: 62 (+2 POD)
Language: English
Annotations: 101 Footnotes
Illustrations: 4

• Title Page
• Heathenry Flame
• Honorary Heathen Headshot: W. Somerset Maugham
• End Title

Categories:

• Fiction /
• Fiction /
• Fiction /