The legendary Cambridge Five are people who devoted their entire lives to serving the Soviet system, which suddenly crumbled into dust. Who are they? Heroes? Adventurers? Patriots or traitors? Citizens of the world? Today, the catchphrase “When the gods laugh...” is quite applicable to their destinies. The gods here are history; we mortals are not given to know what its final judgment will be. John Banville, one of the most prominent representatives of Anglo-Irish literature, does not undertake to weigh the “espionage exploits” of the members of the “five” on the historical scales. It tells the life of Victor Maskell, a semi-fictional character, in all its paradoxical contradictions. Soviet agent and representative of the British elite; the romance of serving noble ideas and the psychopathological quagmire of sexual relationships; pure youthful university friendship; a gathering of like-minded people and unbridled permissiveness; insidious betrayal...The gods laughed at Banville's character, but the reader is given the opportunity to see that it is not the extras in a historical play who deserve divine laughter, but its creators and heroes.