Book Review : Colonel Butler’s Wolf by Anthony Price

Despite the clunky title I liked this book.

The Colonel Butler of the title is a top British intelligence officer investigating the background of a young university lecturer who has died under mysterious circumstances. It turns out that the lecturer was not who he claimed to be, that a Soviet agent had been impersonating him for the last few years! At a top British university foreign agents are ruining the careers of some of the best students.

A pattern emerges as does the large figure of Dr Audley who also works for the intelligence services. Dr Audley is a clever man who can’t relate to people who haven’t had the same education as he himself has received and is therefore a deeply unsympathetic character and antagonising character. He is also bossy and tells Butler to wander around Hadrian’s Wall on the England – Scotland border so as to draw out into the open the chief Soviet ‘asset’ behind their campaign. This asset is a marksman too so Butler is in danger, but it transpires he’s not the asset’s target, someone else is…