Good book ----- Should have it in all of your book cases ( )

This is a great spy novel set in 2007. Dr. Sam Gaddis has financial problems and needs to generate some income to pay his debts. . He's a professor of Russian Studies at a London University and has authored a book on the current Russian president. (In Sam's book, this is a Putin-like character). Charlotte, a journalist friend, offers him the chance to work with her on an expose of the mythical sixth member of the Cambridge Five (Guy Burgess and friends). Things get dicey for Sam when Charlotte suddenly dies. Her death starts a tense and suspenseful spy story which has Sam on the run from both MI6 and the Russian FSB. It takes him to such places as Berlin, Vienna, Barcelona, Budapest and Moscow. Along the way, Sam learns and uses the tricks of the spy trade in order to keep ahead of his pursuers. It comes down to a tense face-to-face encounter in London with a pair of Russian assassins.
This is one of Cumming's better efforts and well worth a read. ( )

"Something happened in Dresden. On ATTILA's watch, in the twilight of his career. Something involving Platov and Robert Wilkinson." Platov, a former KGB agent, is the current president of Russia. ATTILA is the cryptonym for Eddie Crain, the sixth member of the infamous Cambridge association of spies: Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross. M16 has been doing its utmost to keep Crain's identity a secret: the FSB, the Russian foreign intelligence agency has also been working to keep his identity a secret service by murdering off anyone attempting to discover the secret, which includes Charlotte Berg, the close friend of Dr. Sam Gaddis, the protagonist of Charles Cumming's The Trinity Six. It all works to make an interesting and thrilling spy novel.

Quite a thriller and an ingenious plot plus a wicked ending. However, Gaddis can be quite stupid at times. He reveals too much information about Crane and Neame to people he doesn't know much of and even visited Tretiak's wife in Russia despite being warned by Neame to be careful. But after all, he isn't a professional and I guess we can overlook his clumsiness. ( )

I was still at school when Anthony Blunt was exposed as having been a member of the Cambridge Spy Ring, which also included Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Kim Philby and John Cairncross. The outcry of public dismay seemed provoked as much by the fact that Blunt’s treachery had been kept quiet for many years by ‘the establishment’ as in response to the treachery itself. Blunt had confessed as early as April 1964, but it was only with the publication of Andrew Boyle’s book, The Climate of Treason, that his treachery came into the public domain. He had, in the meantime, retained his position as Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, managing the royal art collection, and his academic posts. Following the exposure, he had his knighthood withdrawn and lost his prestigious positions, but did not face prosecution.

Blunt’s treachery was kept secret partially in recompense for his cooperation with MI5, once they had become apprised of his work as a Soviet spy – in addition to confessing about his own crimes, Blunt also names various confederates,, including John Cairncross. There was also, however, an element of face-saving on the part of MI5. The defections during the 1950s of Burgess and Maclean had embarrassed the Service, as had the disappearance from Beirut some years later of Kim Philby. MI5 simply could not afford public acknowledgement of the existence of yet another Cambridge Spy. Along with Cairncross, Blunt brought the total to five, which was more than enough to set American allies wondering what enough was going on in MI5, and just how many other spies might ultimately come out of the woodwork.

This is the backdrop for Charles Cumming’s novel, which postulates the existence of a sixth Cambridge spy. Sam Gaddis, lecturer in Modern History at University College, London, is given a tip that may lead to the scoop of the decade. This couldn’t have come at a better time. Sam is struggling to keep his head above water, as he haemorrhages money to find the maintenance for his young daughter who lives in Spain with his estranged wife. However, just as he feels ready to embark upon the necessary research, his source dies very suddenly. Then, out of the blue, he is contacted by someone who claims to know who the sixth Cambridge Spy was, with an offer to help him find valuable primary documents with which to back up his research. This plunges Sam into dangerous territory, and he finds himself the subject of surveillance by MI5, and also be agents from the former Soviet Union, who seem to have their own reasons for keeping this incident out of the public awareness.

I would be intrigued to know whether, like John le Carré, Cumming has ever worked for the intelligence service himself. He certainly seems to have deep insight into how they operate, and the issues that they endeavour to leave undiscovered. He merges a well constructed plot with plausible characters, and delivers a real page turner. My own minor cavil was that it seemed to end very quickly. Leaving me to wonder whether he had run up against an immovable deadline.

Still, overall it works very well. ( )