An avid reader, Stephen's knowledge of Crime Fiction is fairly extensive, with The Golden Age is his greatest interest.
The height of the Cold War, just months before the Cuban Missile Crisis when the world came closest to a nuclear war, is the setting for this tense, atmospheric thriller. The threat posed by the Soviet Union is a real and present danger. The American Corona project a joint CIA & NASA initiative to establish reconnaissance satellites in space has begun sending back its first photographic film of developments behind the Iron Curtain. These new technologies are set to radically change international security surveillance and the race is on to gain the advantage in this new space era.
This gripping drama, centres around Richard Knox a senior MI5 agent seemingly washed up and hung out to dry by one of his own colleagues. He fears that there is no way back for him until he is given an investigation by one of the men whom he suspects of betraying the country's secrets to the Russians.
Knox is tasked with finding out who killed two Italians murdered in a flat in Deptford. The two men had been trying to get into the security systems of big companies with the hope of being paid to highlight the flaws in Company’s system. The murders appeared to be Russian secret service executions. Knox knows he has to find the killer and evidence of the MI5 mole before his superior Manning gets enough on him to finish him. All Knox has to go on are some pages of code and calculations or are they just scribblings of no interest?
While Knox is having his work cut out trying to solve the deaths of the Italians and the identity of the MI5 mole, he is being watched by Abey Bennett a CIA operative. Bennett is convinced something is not right in the British Intelligence Service. Meanwhile, in Russia at a secret research establishment Irina Valera is searching for a breakthrough in communications in space.
Valera on the verge of a breakthrough in sending messages in space has her work destroyed and life turned upside down when an explosion rips through the research centre. Suddenly, she finds herself on the run from the Russian authorities and heading for the Finnish border.
The Russians can’t afford to lose Valera, her knowledge and expertise, nor can they allow Corona to reveal the fate of the research centre to the Americans. Valera would be invaluable to the Americans searching for a solution to the problem of transmitting data back to earth from the satellites. Britain as an ally of the Americans and third most powerful country in the world would gain much credit if it could aide Valera’s defection. The MI5 mole is the one person who could destroy all their plans.
In this complex espionage plot Mr. Glister has crafted a very fine thriller by creating a suffocating but at the same time an intoxicating mood whilst bringing to life a most desperate and dangerous time in our history.
