DS Derek Smailes is assigned the task of looking into the suicide of Cambridge University student Simon Bowles. Bowles was a graduate student in mathematics, and in his spare time, he liked to apply mathematical logic to unsolved crimes, for example, the Kennedy assassination. While Smailes is willing to admit that Bowles' death was a suicide, as the investigation progresses, he finds himself being given vague answers and outright lies, and then discovers that Bowles was working on a new project involving the Cambridge spy ring (Philby, Blunt, Maclean and Burgess). But unlike his other projects, the files on this project have gone missing. Smailes begins to wonder if quite possibly this newest of Bowles' projects was tied into his death. The investigation heats up for Smailes, leading him into places that some people do not wish him to go and placing his very life in danger.

I think that the reader may want to have even a vague understanding of the Cambridge spy ring -- I spent a lot of time on the internet refreshing my memory about this piece of history. The story never lags, and the suspense builds throughout. I figured out most of the "whodunit" before the end, but it was still a very good read. The characters are drawn well and the story was quite good and mostly plausible.

I'd recommend this to people interested in British mysteries, and people who enjoy stories about espionage. Although this really isn't a hard-core spy novel, it does deal with spies and betrayals and does it well. I believe this is the first of a series featuring DS Smailes, and I would definitely be interested in reading more. ( )