description: The Last Temptation is a novel of treason, the treason of Burgess, Philby, Blunt, and their kind. And the treason of one man who, in loyal service to his country, did, as he saw it, 'the right thing' in recruiting them as agents.In his dying moments this man reviews his whole life in a final, despairing bid for justification. This extraordinary novel, his 'autobiography', traces the events and influences that made his actions inevitable, and the appalling consequences of those actions. His lifelong obsession with the books of Lewis Carroll grows as he is drawn deeper into the looking-glass world of espionage- where he makes his career as an Intelligence officer-and he gives to the figures in his life code-names from the books, sometimes with singular aptness; thus Burgess is the Duchess, Philby the Red Knight, Anthony Blunt the Red Queen.Rooted in fact, this novel follows the parts played by the central character and his colleagues in the shadowy world of intrigue, during the Second World War with their involvement in the complexities of the Double-Cross System, and then in the duplicities of Anglo-American post-war relations with Soviet Russia. Inescapably the narrator is brought into ever closer contact with the young friends he recruited, friends who ultimately betray his loyalty and affection in betraying their own country.A blend of fact and fiction, with fascinating insights into the strange and sometimes sinister lifestyle of Guy Burgess and his fellows, The Last Temptation surely comes closest to the truth in explaining the phenomenon of senior British Intelligence officers exposed in the end as traitors to their own land-the reader is left to make the final judgement.
language: English
title: Last Temptation
titlecomplete: Last Temptation
publisher: Buchan & Enright Publishers