It is 1965 and ex-British Intelligence operative Christopher Winter is trying to establish himself in a new career - as a London gangster.
Winter finds it ironic to now be on the other side of the law, but is making a name for himself in the Jack Creadley gang, and his past contacts have been useful in acquiring a certain valuable item for their latest shady deal.
Unfortunately, the valuable item in question - the heart of an ancient vampire - proves to be more of a hot commodity than they realised, and the deal has dire consequences for the other members of Jack Creadley's gang.
Winter finds himself re-claimed by the Secret Service after being aided by a young spy called Libby Cracknell, who is eager to make a name for herself as a rare female agent in the male-dominated world of espionage. Winter is needed for a new mission after an alluring succubus is apparently desperate to defect to the West, bringing her secrets with her, and she has demanded that Tobias Hart - Winter's old identity - be the man to come and get her.
This mission will involve Winter in the web of secrecy surrounding the Shadowless - a criminal organisation much older and far more deadly than the Mafia - as he tries to fathom what his real mission is and who he is actually working for.
Along the way he will uncover the forgotten truth about his alter-ego Tobias Hart and must decide if he is ready to once more embrace the dark magic he used to be able to master.
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This book brings a whole new meaning to the term Cold War!
Winter is a spy who believes he has escaped the world of British Intelligence, but it is patently clear from almost the very beginning of this story that he is not going to be allowed to walk away as easily as he thought.
Although Winter cannot remember much of his life as Tobias Hart, or the details of the supernatural intrigue surrounding Operation Paragon he was involved in during World War Two, the legacy of his past is about to come back and - quite literally - bite him!
Winter is a competent and well-trained spy, but he is so much more - if only he could remember - and this scares him. It takes the alluring succubus, Alessandra, who remembers Tobias Hart as the powerful and dangerous mage he was, to get Winter to confront the darkness at the heart of his being and reawaken the magic that still lives within him. This is a very interesting development in the life of Winter and leads to some pretty exciting confrontations with the bad guys!
I also very much enjoyed that it was Winter's somewhat rocky relationship with the eager Libby that forces him to take control of his own darkness and start to become the man he is destined to be - not the Tobias Hart of old, but someone new....someone with integrity, who will not be a slave to his past.
I absolutely loved this genre-busting Cold War horror tale. The idea that the real cold war is actually being fought on the borders of the world, beyond the comprehension of the general population is a tantalising and compelling one.
There are all sorts of influences that can be seen in these pages - hints can be found of great spies like James Bond, but with the dry humourous delivery of a Harry Palmer in all his glorious, behind-the-iron-curtain adventures; mixed up with the tense truth-questing feel of a bit of Frederick Forsyth, or Robert Ludlum in their post-WWII stories; and the chill of an Ira Levin or James Herbert - with a bit of added Indiana Jones. This gives this novel a real sense that it is a classic, right from the off.
I must admit that I have not read anything quite like this book before, which I find enormously refreshing. It has all the best features of a Cold War spy story, with a delicious undercurrent of a supernatural horror tale. Why settle for single genre novels when you can have it all?
I did not realise that this was actually the second book in the Christopher Winter series when I started reading it, but I had not read much before I knew I would have to go back and read the first book to fill in the back story - so book one, The War In The Dark, now has pride of place on one of my many bookshelves and I will be getting to this one soon.
What a great read! I am looking forward to more from Nick Setchfield.
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