Faces from the past appear from nowhere at a family funeral, and Will Flemyng, spy-turned-ambassador, is drawn into twin mysteries that threaten everything he holds dear.

From one of our most treasured BBC broadcasters, The Spy Across the Water is the third instalment in James Naughtie’s brilliant spy series, woven around three brothers bound together forever through espionage. There is a third Flemyng brother, Mungo, who lives on the family estate in the quite beautiful Highlands of Scotland where all the boys were brought up. He is an historian and knows a little (not any real detail) about the lives of Will and Abel. The estate provides an ideal location for clandestine meetings. The peace and quiet of a walk around the loch or up into the hills is in stark contrast to an earlier adrenaline powered gun chase through the streets of Chicago. The change of pace and location works really well. You can really tell that Naughtie loves his native Scotland. He is a BBC radio correspondent and presenter who has spent several decades travelling the world as a journalist. He writes with authority both on international espionage and diplomacy – and also on the Scottish countryside that is so dear to him.

Another area which the author really brought across for me was a real sense of location and of place and time with its descriptive narrative, a wonderful protrayal of the 1980s. Another impression that comes strongly across are Flemyings heritage and Scottish roots, there are some wonderfully written scenes which draws you into the landscape The Oxford festival is the most elegant and atmospheric of literary festivals. It’s a pleasure to both attend and perform there. It was the “whiff of the Great Game” about the remark – the sense of “immense ruthless practicality and efficiency” co-existing with “a great dollop of Buchan-esque romance” – that Naughtie has been trying to capture in his series of historical thrillers about MI6 agent Will Flemyng. He published the first, The Madness of July, in 2014 – “I thought it would be fun, not a magnum opus or anything, but the type of story that I would want to read myself” – while on the home straight of his 21-year stint as presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme. Throughout there is a pervading underlying sense of tension which cuts right through the book as you read which gives a real feel of drama and suspense The Spy Across the Water is the latest novel written by James Naughtie, and the third book following Will Flemyng's adventures. Ex-spy and ambassador in Washington DC, our story starts with the funeral of his brother Abel, who was killed in strange circumstances. Will is there not only to say goodbye, but to gather more information about how he died and who killed him.

A thoughtful and detailed novel of statecraft and spycraft, recommended for fans of le Carré' Ian Rankin I’m not quite sure how I managed to miss the earlier books in the series because this sort of spy thriller is right up my street. The fact I hadn’t read the previous two books didn’t stop me enjoying this one although tantalising references to events in the earlier books – Paris in the summer of 1968, a puzzling death and an affair that destroyed one of Will’s colleagues – made me wish I’d discovered the series at its beginning.The Madness of July is one hell of a debut and one hell of a read. Beautifully written, deftly plotted, skilfully paced, imaginatively conceived.' Robert Littell