Before long, he is on the run - not only from a faceless enemy, but from his own past. Which will catch up with him first? Kate is a good spy but as the investigation proceeds you feel she can not be a loyal wife, supportive parent and faithful agent of the government.

Unhappily, validation of the Russians’ information comes in a very short time, when the PM does reveal his illness and promptly resigns. Two candidates emerge as the front-runners to replace him: the current foreign secretary, a notorious womaniser whom no one in MI6 trusts, and Kate’s long-time friend and Stuart’s employer, the education secretary. A spy thriller where everyone is a suspect and you’re not sure whom to trust – there were times I even questioned the main character. But in addition to being a spy thriller, this is also a story where secret service agent must juggle the demands of both work and home. The Quiet American is the title given to this 1956 book about Alden Pyle, a young man who is bold and idealistic, sent by America to Saigon during the Vietnam conflicts of the first Indochina War to perform a mysterious mission. Pyle has one blunder after another, and this causes quite a bit of bloodshed, and a British reporter decides to interview him.

'Do you think it might be time to acknowledge you’re too old for this game?'

Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival. Their relationship has never recovered since Harry's wife's suicide, for which Sean holds his father responsible. And Harry, with his career on the verge of disintegration, needs to find him and put things right. am GMT 25. The Ipcress File by Len Deighton The Ipcress File is a classic spy novel set during the Cold War Secret Service is an espionage novel featuring Kate, an MI6 agent working the Russia Desk while also trying to manage her marriage and raise her two kids. While her team is working surveilance on the son of an Oligarch, Kate and the team discover that the PM is going to step down, which is something no one at MI6 knew. How did the Russians know this and who told them? Could there be a mole in the British government?

A suspenseful, professional-grade north country procedural whose heroine, a deft mix of compassion and attitude, would be welcome to return and tie up the gaping loose end Box leaves. The unrelenting cold makes this the perfect beach read. Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.A book that you can whizz through and enjoy; great escapism but routed in the trends and realities of modern espionage. A clever piece and full of insight and the occasional lighter moment. I particularly liked the quip of calling out one of the team as thinking he was the embodiment of George Smilely. Bradby does a good job controlling his narrative and, without ever becoming tedious or heavy-handed, he subtly helps you remember who knows what, who trusts whom and with what information, and how much each person knows. None of the characters, including the PM candidates, is totally candid, nor can MI6 tip its hand by revealing its investigation of them. Not to mention the bureaucratic difficulty that they’ve concealed this investigation from MI5, which by rights should be conducting it. The title, Secret Service, turns out to have multiple meanings.

A special operation seems to good to be true when MI6 hear information around the PM’s health and the possible general election where one of the candidates has strong leanings toward the Kremlin. Furthermore in intel implies the agency is compromised with a mole ready and willing to ensure the result is in Russia’s favour.

Der Klappentext verrät zwar nicht allzu viel, aber doch genug, dass man mehr wissen möchte. Nach der kurzen Leseprobe war ich dann total von dem Buch angefixt und ich wollte am liebsten sofort weiterlesen… A Russian agent has come forward with news that the PM has been the victim of the greatest misinformation play in the history of MI6. It’s run out of a special KGB unit that exists for one purpose alone: to process the intelligence from ‘Agent Dante’, a mole right at the heart of MI6 in London.

I have a theory which I suspect is rather immoral,’ Smiley went on, more lightly. ‘Each of us has only a quantum of compassion. That if we lavish our concern on every stray cat, we never get to the centre of things.” John Le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy But largely—and this is maybe the book’s biggest weakness—she is wrestling with the struggle of ‘being a woman’ and ‘having it all.’ Along with her job, Kate also juggles taking care of her two kids, her aging mother, and, for good measure, an ailing dog. There are various family problems, as well as Kate’s contentious relationship with her mother, who cheated Kate’s father with a family friend and upended their family. None of the family drama is particularly urgent or, really, dramatic, and even though Kate should have enough going on with unmasking Russian spies and saving democracy, she still comes down on herself: The book is rooted in relationships; secrets and lies and that shady area of spies and departmental ambition. People’s motives and associations are placed under the microscope as the spies investigate themselves while trying to protect the country at large.TOM BRADBY is a novelist, screenwriter and journalist. He has written nine previous novels, including top-ten bestselling Secret Service, and its two sequels , Double Agent and Triple Cross. The Master of Rain was shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association Steel Dagger for Thriller of the Year, and both The White Russian and The God of Chaos for the CWA Historical Crime Novel of the Year. He adapted his first novel, Shadow Dancer, into a film, the script for which was nominated for Screenplay of the Year in the Evening Standard Film Awards. My only small niggle is the authors very vocal anti Russia sentiment in the book, it didnt spoil it at all but was obvious his thoughts throughout! Okay, so maybe I've been spoiled on Le Carre and Slough House, but when did British Intelligence get so domestic and ...gooey? The Ipcress File is a riveting spy novel that was published in 1962, with themes of war, adversity and betrayal. When a high-ranking scientist is kidnapped, a secret British intelligence agency is tasked with discovering why. The protagonist, Harry Palmer, becomes entangled in the dangerous mission where he uncovers bizarre brain-washing techniques and Cold War secrets that create sharp twists and turns in this complex plot. When she became a minister, she was very voluble, particularly about the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, which had happened a few years before she joined the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. She took a very tough line, demanding stiffer sanctions and actually getting them imposed on a wider section of the president’s inner circle. … She’s barely spoken publicly about Russia since.”