Well-researched and readable biography of Guy Burgess, one of the "Cambridge Spies". The ease with which this philandering, drunken and overtly Communist slob was able to infiltrate the British secret service while already spying for Moscow is breathtaking. Background checks? Chap went to Eton, for heaven's sake. Burgess's treachery seems motivated by a measure of warped idealism combined with a delight in skulduggery. Fascinating.