just getting grips with this sensational series! and, like other reviewers note on Amazon, i'm not a new obsessive reader - already ordered others in the series - Troy is savvy, and increasingly as he progresses from your neophyte inspector to long-in-the-tooth and playing all sides but always on the side of innocence ... we meet the renown spy Guy Burgess at various times in Troy's life as he bumps into him and he just becomes seedier and seedier, more and more unreliable - until he asks for help because he has something 'over' Troy - and then a catastrophe (and it's a friend too) - a real story line and developed characters (sometimes real people, like Blunt and PopeHennessy appear (both of whom I'd met or heard of indirectly among friends) and that is pleasing too. excellent intrigue and red herrings galore to keep you hooked - this is a terrific series, a new discovery for me and i'm thoroughly pleased.

What a pleasure and a treasure. A new book by John Lawton is always to be celebrated and here more so than ever as Freddie Troy returns along with most of the members of his extended family as well as other characters returning from previous books.

As is normal with Lawton the action ranges forward and back in time and deals with the tangled affairs of Guy Burgess, his initial flight from England with Donald McLean and his abortive efforts to return to this country using the help of long term acquaintance Troy.

This is a wonderful shaggy dog story which provides a glorious social history of the times and the language is vivid and the characters memorable.

Lawton is a hidden treasure and he deserves far wider recognition. It helps to have read his previous 7 Troy novels but that is no hardship as the reader can then revel in the previous adventures of a memorable set of characters.

Read and enjoy.