Book Review – A Cold Wind From Moscow by Rory Clements @ZaffreBooks

About the Book

Winter, 1947. Britain’s secret services have been penetrated. The country is more vulnerable than ever – and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin knows it. He decides it is time to send his master of ‘Special Tasks’ to create extra chaos.

But Stalin has a more important motive than mere disruption. He has a man on the inside who must be protected at all costs – a communist super-spy who has the secrets of the atomic bomb at his fingertips.

Freya Bentall, a senior MI5 officer, no longer knows who to trust and is left with one to bring in an outsider whose loyalty is beyond question – Cambridge professor Tom Wilde. His to find the traitor in MI5.

Bentall has three main suspects and Wilde must get close to them all. That means delving deep into the criminal underworld, attaching himself to the cultural elite of the arts and finding a way into the extreme reaches of British politics.

As winter bites and violence erupts, Wilde faces an uphill battle to protect those he loves from merciless killers. And he knows that one slip will spell disaster for the country – and his family.

Format: Hardcover (368 pages) Publisher: Zaffre
Publication date: 30th January 2025 Genre: Historical Fiction, Thriller

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My Review

A Cold Wind From Moscow is the eighth book in the author’s Tom Wilde spy thriller series. It’s a series I absolutely love and nothing excites me more than learning another book is on the way. You probably could read it as a standalone but if you want to give yourself a real treat, read the series from the beginning starting with Corpus.

Tom is continuing his vain attempt to free himself from the grip of MI5 and return to his role as a Professor of History at Cambridge University. He has a young son whom he wants to spend more time with, especially as his wife Lydia is away training to be a doctor. It’s a long-held ambition of hers and Tom is not the sort of man to stand in her way. To be fair, she’s not the sort of woman to let a man stand in her way either. Their meetings are limited to brief encounters in London hotels where Tom, in the words of Lydia, is called upon to perform his ‘nuptial duties’.

However Freya Bentall, a senior officer with MI5, is a difficult woman to say no to, particularly when the security of the country is at risk. Tom may be American by birth but he’s a Briton by choice, and a patriot. With echoes of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre, Tom takes on the task of identifying the traitor Freya believes has infilitrated MI5. In engaging with her three suspects he finds himself visiting some varied places – from seedy gambling dens, to dockside cafes and elegant art galleries – and characters from all echelons of society, including some pretty violent individuals with their own signature way of despatching people who get in their way.

We also know from the dramatic opening chapter that there are even nastier people out there, motivated by political ideology and utterly ruthless because they know the personal consequences of failure. ‘Bloodshed was in their nature. Compassion was an alien concept.’ They also know that someone with secrets is the perfect target for coercion.

The story is peppered with exciting action scenes, including a violent assault on a remote house made even more dramatic by the fact the harsh winter has brought England to a virtual standstill. We also find out some intriguing information about the enigmatic and famously taciturn Freya Bentall.

Rory Clements has perfected the art of combining real events, in this case the post-war atomic weapons race, with exciting fictional scenarios. The story moves at the speed of a runaway train and has surprises around every corner. Don’t be shocked if a character you trust turns out to be a wrong’un, or the other way around.

As a gift for faithful followers of the series, there are references to events and characters in the second Tom Wilde book, Nucleus. I also loved the walk-on parts for three real-life individuals in the closing pages of the book.

If you are a fan of spy thrillers, A Cold Wind From Moscow will most definitely not disappoint. I loved it.

In three words: Fast-paced, dramatic, immersive

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About the Author

Rory Clements writes full-time is a quiet corner of Norfolk, where he lives with his wife, the artist Naomi Clements Wright. He is a Sunday Times bestselling author, and twice winner of the CWA Historical Dagger Award, for Revenger and Nucleus. Three of his other novels – Martyr, Prince and The Heretics – have been shortlisted for awards. A Cold Wind From Moscow is Rory’s sixteenth novel, and the eighth featuring Professor Tom Wilde.

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