‘Judd, a veteran spy novelist and former diplomat, knows his way around Britain’s world of shadows. He takes the reader straight back to the start of the first world war and the long, smoke-filled, gloomy corridors of Whitehall ministries.’ Financial Times ‘Veteran spy writer Alan Judd eschews easy drama and obvious cliffhangers in this elegantly written novel.’ Literary Review ‘A masterful storyteller with an intricate knowledge of his subject’ The Daily Telegraph