KILLING TODAYS SPIES AND 'TRAITORS'

CHARLES CUMMING AND THE TRINITY SIX

Another spy story told brilliantly by Mr Cumming. It is a damn good read.

You could be mistaken that this is a story of decades ago. Of course, this novel is one of the past, as it was written in 2010. The basis of the story is given below, but if you the think that the activities of the espionage and counter espionage are all history just keep an alert eye out for what is being reported in this morning's papers. For today, my reading was the Times.

Angela Merkel is being urged to confront Putin over the assassination of Zelinkhan Khangoshvili, a Chechen exile who had sought safety. He was dispensed with. That's chilling, even deadly. Ben Macintyre in the same paper reports ‘Smersh spy-killers are back in business’. The name involving two names smashed together and then used by Ian Fleming with his Bond stories. It is interesting to think how real was Bond and how much Fleming knew.

As of last night we can now wonder where Jeremy Corbyn got his information from regarding his comments on Ireland. He did a ‘Chamberlain’ waving the intended ‘revealing’ pages at the cameras. Maybe this has been sourced from somewhere deep in the Kremlin? And, could both be fake? We are left to ponder again and to believe what you want. I prefer evidence, but in this murky world it's a guessing game.

Now to the book and you can decide how close any of it was, to yesterday's truth, and even let it become closer to this day.

The Cold War. The threat of nuclear war and the spy stories occupied governments, journalists and the media reveled in the subject. Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean and John Cairncross were the Cambridge Five. Recruited by Moscow to sell our secrets to benefit the communists.

The recruitment of these spies is regarded as the most successful penetration by a foreign intelligence service in the history of espionage. In Russia, the men from Trinity College were known as The Magnificent Five.

Now, those are the facts and then the story begins. Dr Sam Gaddis, a hard up Russian expert who receives something that he cannot leave alone. There is some one else out there that needs tracking down. Don't worry people get killed and he embarks on his mission to bring justice in the world of espionage.

The front cover announces ‘Utterly absorbing and compelling. A brilliant re-imagining of events surrounding the notorious Cambridge spy-ring’. So that's enough. Well, almost it's a chase around Europe and much further away. It reads well and moves rapidly. But if you do not like a spy story based on historical facts then it is not a book for you. I liked it and Charles Cummings always tells a very good story. I will be on the look out for one more of his books in another second-hand book shop. This copy, for just two euros, obtained from J and J Books and Coffee in Madrid. We love book shops, especially independent ones.