by Ben Macintyre, 2014, Crown Publishing, New York

This story is fascinating as it probes how an upper-class gentleman in British Society could betray his country.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t give all the answers and leaves quite a bit to conjecture.  This may be due to the fact that so many of the records of the British Secret service pertaining to Philby remain sealed, but I would have liked to have come away from the book feeling a little more satisfaction that I understood Philby and the world he lived in.

The book also tends to be a bit repetitive in that it depicts the social situation that Philby lived in as being absorbed in endless drinking and the telling of ribald stories.  This, too, is unfortunate as the same story repeated numerous times tends to get old.

Nonetheless, it is an interesting book.  I just felt it should have given me a bit more.