I have read very few five star books this year but this is one that I have that was worth all the stars I can give it.

Set in the present, the book explores what might happen if MI5 and the CIA stop talking and working together due to a new head of the CIA enacting the president’s wishes to equalise the relationship in terms of money and information. Very transactional and very apposite. The special relationship is not about relationships but about common interests and as those become fewer and fewer, so the specialness is strained.

Head of London Station is Artemis Aphrodite Proctor, a crazy woman, recovering alcoholic and lover of guns. In previous books she has been a nightmare to manage, foul-mouthed, compulsive individual who finds herself in areas of great difficulty such as eating a poisoned muffin, or in London Station, being promoted to Head of the Station. And it is here, in this book, that she starts to show a modicum of restraint, biting her tongue when Bricker is sent by the Head of CIA to ensure that the relationship is being reset. Previously, Bricker worked for a large building company owned by the Head of CIA, and it is this lack of experience and obnoxious behaviour that opens up a chain reaction of death and betrayal.

The story then becomes a spy hunt within, very Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and capturing those who have sold their secrets.

What makes this book so good is its relevance to today, the precarious nature of the special relationship, which honestly is no longer there, buddies and friends brought in to run organisations they have no experience of, sackings and the ensuing chaos. It is not a great leap of imagination to see the book as a reality (it isn’t) but it is so, so close.

And at the end, the special relationship is not healed.