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Wow wow and just wow. I can't believe I left it so long to read this book. I bought this book in 2004 and then decided it wouldn't be my sort of book. I hate to get rid of books without giving them at least 20 or 30 pages but I was gripped from the very first page. It's not like I would expect a spy thriller to be like. This is just a normal guy who works in an engineering factory who, although sees himself as english, his parents are both russian. Because he speaks fluent Russian he is approached by the secret service to do a simple job of passing on a secret package to a guy in Russia. Although not so simple. He is picked up by the Russian secret police and thrown into a gulag to do 15 years for espionage, but no worries, he was told if anything happens they had a spy in a British jail who the Russians wanted returned to them and a swap would be done....except the Russian spy dies! It was an exciting read and certainly one of the better thrillers I have read in a while!

Left on the book table in the mess room (and selected by a colleague)