Gerald Seymour's best yet - even better than Harry's Game. This week we lost Frederick Forsyth and everyone compared him to Le Carre but Gerry is up there with them. His latest reaches new heights. Absolutely brilliant.

If you're a Jonas Merrick fan like me, this is really a triumph (watch out for the word STRUTTING). I wrote John Le Carre, my favourite British writer since Graham Greene, towards the end of his life, telling him I was amazed that he was getting better as he got older and how relieving it was to read someone improving in their 80s. This is a similar effect by Seymour. David Cornwell (JLC) wrote me a lovely long, detailed letter of thanks.