Frederick Forsyth along with John Le Carré are two of my all-time favourite writers. Their books provide one with an insight into international politics, history, operations conducted by special services around the world and reveal what is usually hidden away behind the scenes. This particular book covers the intricate battle between the special services of Great Britain and the Soviet Union in the 80s of the previous century. Although written 40 years ago, this thriller describes events that (sadly) can easily be imagined happening today, in the XXI century. That being said, I'd like to point out a couple of aspects of this book I appreciated less. For instance, the description of the state and internal politics of the British Labour party in the 80s seemed somewhat boring to me. So did the detailed and rather cumbersome orgstructure of the British and Soviet special services. It is next to impossible to memorize all the divisions, subdivisions, directorates, etc. Moreover, Forsyth always mentions a myriad of different names of characters and their respective job titles, so that it takes an outstanding memory to capture them all. Besides, as usual, the author utilizes several plot lines running in parallel which poses an additional challenge for the reader.

The bottom line, however, is that this thriller provides one with a valuable source of information on how things are actually done in the modern world, the consequences of which are reaped by the rank and file.