The eighth instalment in Rory Clements’ Tom Wilde series delves into a whole new world as the threat of Nazism is replaced by the threat of Soviet Communism.
Not for the first time in a Tom Wilde spy thriller, the story begins with very real and dangerous men in a meeting. Joseph Stalin, Lavrentiy Beria and Leonid Eitingon plot against the United Kingdom. Said plotting creates suspense on every page, suspicion on every character and downright shock in every chapter. With it comes untold misery for those involved; those who have ended up on the wrong side of dangerous men fighting for an ideological cause that would impact the whole world. There, thrown into the centre of it all, is Professor Thomas Wilde, the Cambridge history professor who always ends up deep in the world of espionage.
A Cold Wind From Moscow brings about a welcome change of pace. Whereas Wilde’s crusades against the forces of the Third Reich got neither old nor boring, history moves on and with it, so does the story. As such, Clements has ended the Nazi chapter of Wilde’s life on a high with The English Führer and, with foreshadowing events in both The English Führer and its prequel book The Man In The Bunker, moved the story on to face the threat of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the Cold War.
The year is 1947 and England is in a dire way, facing a winter of unprecedented harshness and shortages unimaginable among a whole myriad of other problems. Professor Thomas Wilde is back in Cambridge having left the world of espionage behind him but, like always, it hasn’t left him behind and soon it is back, in the form of MI5 boss Freya Bentall. Now Wilde must go on a mission to hunt down double agents, which takes him into both the gang-ridden underbelly and the high society of London. He is tasked with finding Soviet double agents within the ranks of MI5 but as time goes on, the stakes rise higher and soon neither Wilde nor the reader know who to trust. And on the issue of trust, might the reader finally find out where one pivotal character in the Tom Wilde series’ loyalties lie? Or will the truth be as evasive as he is?
Despite being a brand-new story, A Cold Wind From Moscow also feels as though it is dripping in nostalgia and déjà vu. We see the beginning of a fight against an enemy from a major political ideology as we did with Hitler and Nazism in book one, Corpus, and we see the return of an old friend who was last seen in book two, Nucleus.
The best part, however, is that Rory Clements hasn’t lost his touch. Eight books in and you’re still gripped, unable to put the book down as the story takes you over and you become immersed in the Cambridge of the 1940s; sucked into the cold, harsh winter, the beautiful yet war-ravaged towns and cities, and the dangerous conflicts surrounding the lives of everyone involved. With seven books facing the many threats of Nazi Germany, will this be the first of seven facing Communist Russia? Once again, Rory Clements has produced a written work of art. A Cold Wind From Moscow is an absolute hit from start to finish in a never-ending stream of hits from an author who never seems to miss. The only problem now is the long wait for the next part which will hopefully be out sooner rather than later.
Words by James Jobson
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