On the first page of Alex Dryden's Red to Black, the narrator of this spy story, a female KGB Colonel named Anna, is told by her one-time lover, a British M16 operative named Finn, "Anna, you know our story can never be written. Nobody would believe it."

Obviously, the comely Russian totally ignored her bedmate's warning, and what follows is a riveting tale about a shocking and ingenious plan to control the European continent and shift the balance of world power.

The plan, hatched during the Cold War in the depths of the Kremlin and nurtured through the post-Soviet years, codifies an attack upon the West. With billions of dollars secreted away in Western banks, the money has been amassed to make "the Plan" a reality.

The one-time adversaries must join together to not only uncover the particulars of the plot but also find a way to derail it before those behind it turn back the clock of history.

This debut by British journalist Alex Dryden is an old-fashioned espionage tale that suggests the new Russia hasn't moved very far from the old Soviet Union.

Russian expert and The Economist staff writer Ed Lucas says of this thriller, "It may read like a novel, but it is far more informative than factual writers would dare to be."

If you miss the novels of John le Carré rejoice—the good, old-fashioned spy story is still alive!