I've just finished my first novel by Charles Cumming, titled The Trinity Six. This is the fifth novel by this author and it belongs very much in the spy genre. This makes a nice change from the usual Di Vinci Clones and serial killer epics that are presently filling up the shelves of the bookshops I visit.
The book is set in the present day with Sam Gaddis, an English academic and expert on Russia, finding himself in financial trouble. He needs to write a best-seller instead of his usual dry tomes. He comes across the theory that there was a sixth doube agent called Eddie Crane who was spying for the Russians during the Cold War. Apparently Crane's death was faked in 1992 and he has been living under another identity ever since. Gaddis starts the detective work.
Eventually he encounters a contemporary of Crane who starts revealing some details to Gaddis. Meanwhile otyher people who know of Crane's faked death are being eliminated, apparently be the Russians. It would appear that Crane has knowledge of a secret with implications to the relationship between the UK and Russia.
This was an entertaining novel and was quite well written. While not action packed it did feature a increasingly paranoid Gaddis traveling around Europe trying to get to the bottom of things while avoiding the Russian assassins and potential MI6 interference.
In time I will be checking out the author's other four novels.
