THE CLIMATE OF TREASON - Andrew Boyle

The best book I've read on the Cambridge spies even though it was published in 1979 when there was not as much information available as there is today.

The author goes into the social background of Britain at the time the eventual 'five' were recruited.  There was a genuine belief among many young wealthy types and "academics"  ( please spare us from them and for evermore) that communism was the answer to the imbalance in society perhaps a  way to fight the rise of  fascism.

This is a great read, it shows Burgess as a much more productive spy than as the drunken Buffon that he often portrayed.

These five will continue to get written about as more papers are released.  To think there was only five spying is naïve in the extreme.  I suspect there were dozens but as the British intelligence services were so totally incompetent we will never know a number and how many deals were done like in Blunt's case.

This is hard to get in hard back but easy in paperback so get it and read it if this period interests you at all.