As usual in my reviews, I will not rehash the plot...

I've read all the previous "Tom Wilde" novels, and have enjoyed them all, so I was delighted to be invited to read this latest book. I was not disappointed...

This novel is set in 1947, and the Cold War is underway (quite literally as that really was the coldest UK winter for many a moon!)

It was good to revisit characters like Tom, Lydia, and Freya who we've met before. There are plenty of new characters to add to the mix - including some very unpleasant "baddies". This felt like a much darker book in many ways - there are quite a few deaths, and not knowing who exactly could be trusted added to the unsettling feeliing - a good thing in a "thriller" I think!

Looking forward to reading more in this excellent series!

My thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC. All opinions my own.

Another excellent, and engrossing page-turner from Rory Clements, It is now 1947 and Tom Wilde now back in Cambridge wishes to maintain his hard-won civilian life, but ........ Stalin has sent his super-agent to bring chaos to his former ally, in order to protect his super-spy working at Harwell. And chaos, mystery, death all ensue. Saying more, apart from 'you must read this' would risk spoilers.

With thanks to NetGalley and Zaffre for an APC

After a brief interlude writing about a Munich detective, Rory Clwements is thankfully back on more solid and fertile ground with another superb Tom Wilde spy thriller.

It is the time of the cold war in an England that is also freezing and the lecturer turned intelligence operator os tasked with uncovering a Soviet mole who threatens the security of the nation.

The writing is as taut as ever, the characters and plot credible and fascinating and the sense of time and place totally accurate and evocative.

What more can you ask for? A veritable treat.

A new direction for this excellent series.

"A Cold Wind From Moscow" opens in February, 1947, and Britain is still recovering from the war. Food is in short supply, there are regular power cuts, and the coldest winter in years is upon them. Professor Tom Wilde continues to work at his Cambridge university, his spying days well behind him. But when a visitor is found dead, violently murdered in his rooms, he is quickly thrust back into the world of espionage.

But it's not the world of spying he knew previously - this is the start of a new war - a Cold War, where the rules are different. And when head of SIS, Freya Bentall asks him for one last favour - to track down a mole within MI5, he reluctantly takes up the mantle of spy once more. Before long he realises that former allies, the Russians, have turned their sights on Britain.

Swiftly the story turns to the fast-paced, desperate race against time that fans of this series love. Tom, the reluctant spy, seeks out the mole, but quickly sees the bigger picture, one of the emerging race for better atomic weapons, and those who are key to its development. Along the way he meets a colourful cast of characters, from the deeply suspicious fellow spies, to a flamboyant aristocratic artist, a Russian scientist willing to share secrets and a charismatic scientist by the name of Klaus Fuchs. And, of course, post-war Britain is beautifully rendered, with little details that perfectly capture the mood of the time. The author's research is impeccable, as usual.

There are more than a few throwbacks to the second Tom Wilde novel, "Nucleus", with characters and events forming the basis for what faces our hero this time around. Fans of the series will enjoy this, I think. The author also nicely inserts real-life people and locations into the story - as well as Klaus Fuchs, we visit the Harwell Campus, and there's even mention of Philby, Burgess and Maclean. Could this be a hint at the next Wilde book?

Fans of the series will love this latest Wilde adventure, as will fans of Simon Scarrow, Alex Gerlis and Charles Beaumont. Heartily recommended.