The Trinity Six (edition 2011)

Another new author and an excellent read. Le Carre style espionage, exciting with good characters and great settings.
Thank you public library for the ability to read so much without the expense! ( )

Eh. Not great. ( )

A good read but not his best... However, I did especially like the last chapter.

One interesting item in the book is the use of sodium fluoroacetate [although he spelled it wrong] to assassinate one of the characters. The symptoms of poisoning can look like the victim had heart failure. In the book he says it is undetectable after death but I couldn't find anything about that on the Internet. It apparently tastes just like salt.

This was the first time I have come across this seemingly simple method. ( )

Espionage aficionados likely know of the Cambridge Five: Blunt, Philby, Burgess, Maclean, Cairncross. This book takes that idea and adds the possibility of a sixth man to the mix, with a professor of Russian history being put onto the scent by a journalist friend. He knows there's something going on because the bodies are starting to pile up -- will he himself survive long enough to tell the story?

My reaction to the premise was amused skepticism, but I figured it was worth a shot. And overall it proved enjoyable. Actually I ended up liking some of the peripheral characters more than the protagonist, Charles Gaddis -- particularly the retired spooks. I think what prevented me from liking Gaddis more was his ongoing impression that every woman he met was hitting on him. Vain much? Fortunately there are very few naughty scenes to detract from the espionage aspect, which, revolving as it does around old files and case histories, does have an air of Tinker Tailor to it (although Tinker Tailor has more depth). The story moves at a good clip and is easy to pick up and put down again, making it very suitable for travel reading -- in print format. I originally started reading this in audio and had to stop after one disc, as the narrator's voice seemed better suited to a non-fiction book: he spoke in a very Clipped. Tense and Dramatic. Manner. and the characters were a bit difficult to distinguish; in contrast, he read the introductory Note about the Cambridge Five very well.

To summarize: if you like spies and the Cambridge Five and are curious about this book, it's worth a shot (in print). ( )

Slow to get going for me, but then I enjoyed it. ( )