Computer games run in a classified war studies centre in London. Nuclear submarines prowl beneath Arctic ice. And war games go into real time. Patrick Armstrong - possibly the same reluctant hero of The IPCRESS File - is sent to investigate.

Patrick Armstrong is a tough, dedicated agent and war-games player. But in Armstrong's violent, complex world, war-games are all too often played for real. Soon the chase (or is it escape?) is on.

From the secretive computerized college of war studies in London via a bleak, sinister Scottish redoubt to the Arctic ice cap where nuclear submarines prowl ominously beneath frozen wastes, a lethal web of violence and double-cross is woven. And Europe's whole future hangs by a deadly thread...

Spy Story is the most authentic and brilliant novel of espionage yet from the world's greatest writer of spy thrillers.