It’s the 1930s. War is coming. As Cambridge undergraduates waver between the extremes of fascism and communism, James Gosling, Fergus Gilpaige, Nova Allan and Dandy McIntyre find they have more in common than just being privileged, beautiful and brilliant. They all have been recruited by the KGB.

Set against the background of IRA terrorism and nuclear proliferation, while the Soviet Union after the war spreads its influence across Europe, Gosling rises to head MI5 and Gilpaige becomes the most powerful man in Ireland, where the communist takeover will begin. When Gosling’s daughter, Victoria, discovers the plot just as the first shots are about to be fired, he must choose between saving her life and betraying the cause, as well as his friends and himself.

With incredible new disclosures made available through the Freedom of Information Act, and drawing on material revealed by master spies Blunt, Philby, Burgess and Maclean, Kevin Catterall in his debut novel portrays “what might have been” in this gripping thriller written in the great tradition of le Carré and Forsyth.