While we wait for the next Slough House novel to come out (on 12 May, but who’s counting) and for the Apple TV series based on that those characters (no release date yet), along comes…Read more…

Owen Matthews knows the Soviet Union. First of all, he was born in Leningrad. He went on to become a journalist there, serving as Newsweek’s Moscow correspondent for years. He wrote an excellent…Read more…

If you’re looking for a short book about the 1921 rebellion of the Kronstadt sailors against the Bolshevik dictatorship, this is not a bad place to start. Written from an activist rather than an…Read more…

What was the greatest maritime disaster in history? The Titanic? Not even close. It was the German cruise ship Wilhelm Gustloff, with over 10,000 people on board — some 9,000 of whom died in…Read more…

Alice Sebold is a terrific writer and this book proves it. A memoir of her rape at a time when she was a young student at Syracuse University, it begins with a harrowing and honest…Read more…

One of the most striking anecdotes in this book appears at the very end. This was the story of Leon Bronchart, a French railway worker who stood up to the Nazi German occupiers and their…Read more…

There have been three books in this series and I’m reading them out of order, but no matter. These are enjoyable romps written by an author who has already tried his hand at writing a…Read more…

First of all, that’s quite a title. In polite company, one doesn’t throw around the word ‘traitor’ very casually. But Lownie has written about traitors before (I really…Read more…

Do books come any scarier than this? I guess they do. The Exorcist was pretty terrifying. But Ira Levin’s great skill as a story-teller reveals itself here in creating a world that is both…Read more…

Having recently read a new novel about the creation of a Nazi Fourth Reich set in 2012, I wanted to return to this classic thriller. I noticed two things immediately: first of all, the prospects…Read more…

Imagine if you will a wealthy German-American whose son runs as a populist candidate for the Republican nomination for president — but who harbours a dark secret. That secret is not his inclination…Read more…

During the years between writing Animal Farm and 1984, George Orwell was mostly engaged with journalism. In early 1945, he was sent over to the continent to observe the final weeks of the Second…Read more…

Like many people, I grew up thinking that the West had the best secret agents — James Bond being the most famous (fictional) example. It was only later on that I discovered the incredible…Read more…

It seems like everyone who reads this books loves it, and the praise from book reviewers in deafening. Allow me to offer a dissenting view. While the life story of the author is tragic and…Read more…

Silverview, John le Carré’s final book, has all the elements that made his earlier books such fantastic reads. It has former spies, current spies, hard-nosed cynics, naive innocents, betrayed…Read more…