Conspiracies, the Cold War, modern day spies in London, these were the things that attracted me to The Trinity Six and I got my fill of all of them. The story follows a London professor who stumbles on a Cold War conspiracy after a writer friend of his passes away. What starts out as a passing interest in carrying on his dead friend's legacy becomes a run for his life as bit by bit he begins to uncover the secret of the sixth Cambridge spy.

At first, the story's hero, Sam Gaddis, comes off as an everyman most of us can relate to. Though he's an author and academic, he's also divorced, broke and he misses his daughter who lives far, far away with her mother.

Then two things happen. A woman hands him her mother's life's work - boxes and boxes of information about spies in Russia and the UK. Next, his best friend who was hot on the trail of a spy story of her own, turns up dead. With information from the two sources, Gaddis is able to track down a series of people who each add to the tale of a Cold War spy whose death was faked in order to protect his anonymity.

The spy trail takes Gaddis to Russia and Vienna and with ever step things get more and more deadly for himself and those around him.

The downside of The Trinity Six is that by the middle of the book, it's hard to believe that Gaddis would keep endangering other people just to get the story. He's not an eager, careless crusading reporter. He's an intelligent man who does some pretty stupid things throughout the book.

It's also hard to believe that is able to uncover the story so easily when many before him, including trained Russian spies have failed. From early on in the book, you have to wonder why the bad guys don't just kill him and get it over with. This isn't a James Bond novel, so his narrow escapes become more unbelievable with every page.

If you let those issues go, The Trinity Six is an intriguing spy novel with more than a few twists and turns. The last third of the book is loaded with tension and made it worth muddling through some of the slower sections in the middle.

For those who like political spy novels, particularly if you're a fan of Russian and / or British history, The Trinty Six is a good read.