A Stranger In Corfu, Preston - B

         On Corfu in the mid-90s, a village that had been the Med HQ for Britain's security services is now a place of rest. Its guests range from young, recently wounded and recovering MI6 agents to old fossils too ditzy and filled with state secrets to be left unobserved. Nina, only 24 but already put through the hell of a six-month incarceration in Bosnia, is walking with one of the older fellas one day when shots ring out. A month later, a different long-term resident drowned under mysterious circumstances. Most of the seniors were recruited by Philby and were communist double agents. A few months later, another one of the old ones is dead—this time weighed down and drowned. London assures them there is no connection and that there is nothing to worry about. Then, another one is shot. Apparently, someone at HQ is clearing up and burying all of the old-era commies at the behest of their former KGB handler, who now has a shot at the Russian presidency. And Arkady's daughter with one of the Oxbridge recruits is the MI6 Chief, with a shot at PM or the Foreign Office.

        I find it fascinating that the English still write about Philby, the 1930s Oxbridge fascination with communism, and its always-ongoing consequences. The book excels at assessing old age and the reminiscences of things done well and those not.