"London, 2022. Daniel Ambler, spy novelist, has been invited to the Fifth Annual Graham Greene Conference. But the author will not just be giving a speech at the event. Ambler has been instructed by MI6 to make an approach to his friend Konstantin Livanov. Andrew Knight, the new head of the Russia desk, is interested in recruiting the bestselling writer as an asset. The mission seems simple, but things become complicated when Ambler discovers that a bug has been planted in his room. Is Ambler now the target of an operation, rather than merely a go-between? The conference is playing host to a number of suspect figures, including former and current communists, writers with a grudge against Ambler - and a UK politician, Julian Sloan. Has the author been written into a plot of one of his novels or is it all in his mind?"