It was captivating and I would probably have read it in one go if I'd had an actual cooy of the book (another book read on Pigeonhole, so it was a stave a day! MI6 senior intelligence officer Kate Henderson’s work life balance has hit the buffers since we last met up with her in Secret Service. The allegations are explosive: agreement to the resettlement suggests that they could be true, while a refusal could come later to look like cowardice or worse. He has been with ITN for thirty years and was successively Ireland Correspondent, Political Correspondent, Asia Correspondent (during which time he was shot and seriously injured whilst Covering a riot in Jakarta), Royal Correspondent, UK Editor and Political Editor- a job he held for a decade - before being made the Anchor of News at Ten in 2015.

Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Having said all that; I might be tempted to try book 3 in the series; they read well and though we're short on interesting characters at least there's enough left hanging to persue it. The stress is getting to Kate and her family but the time is coming where she may have to choose between country and sanity.The book nonetheless held my interest throughout, with plenty of spy stuff, enough topical associations to make the politics familiar, and plenty of surprises.

The novel starts off with a murder, and with seven people trapped on an isolated Greek island lashed by a "wild, unpredictable Greek wind. Events make it clear that her visit has been blown, but she is sufficiently persuaded that Borodin should be extracted to press the foreign minister to proceed. Borodin explains that he and his father, Igor, former chief of Russia's foreign intelligence service, are victims of a GRU power grab and are at risk of death or imprisonment. In exchange he offers Kate conclusive evidence to prove the identity of a live Russian agent at the very heart of the British Government. I found the two aspects distracted from each other rather than enhanced the book and I struggled a bit as a result.For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin.

It’s an opportunity to meet her husband Stuart who betrayed both his wife and his country, and is now living in Moscow. Kate Henderson, employed by British intelligence, is kidnapped by a potential Russian defector whilst on holiday in Venice. There again begins an operation to determine the veracity of this and we get more office and political manoeuvring, Kate putting herself in danger again and so on. Bradby captures these permutations, with their subtle configurations of change and continuity in realpolitik, with a deft touch.His ability to weave a complex yet very intriguing conspiracy is to be admired, also his ability to pull you into the story. We learn about Kate’s possibly stalling career and Leo’s plan to apply to acting schools against his mother’s wishes. Kate is a terrific protagonist and her personal journey is as revealing and worth sharing as the action adventure the overall plot and story brings.

I don’t want to be too critical; Double Agent is perfectly readable, it has good things about it and I’m sure there will be a third novel in the series which I shall probably read.A follow on from last year's "Secret Service", Kate Atkinson is temporarily kidnapped in Venice by a Russian who wants to defect, and promising compromising video of the British PM, as well as evidence that the PM is on Russia's payroll.