Donald Maclean: The spy who came in from the East

Biography: A Spy Named Orphan: The Enigma of Donald Maclean, By Roland Philipps, Bodley Head, €17.50

Betrayal comes in various guises and, like revenge, is best served cold. For Donald Maclean, a British diplomat who spied for the USSR and is the subject of this engrossing new biography by Roland Philipps, it was doubly difficult: both personal and ideological.

Maclean had a privileged upbringing, attending a private school, before going to Cambridge University. ...