Agent 6 is the third in Tom Rob Smith's trilogy about a former MGB agent, Leo Demidov. It opens with a flashback to the younger Leo in 1950, a committed secret policeman of 27 who has just discovered the of a young artist. Polina Peshkova has committed no crime beyond wanting to keep for herself some private space, but like millions of others in the Soviet Union, she is sucked into what Evgenia Ginzburg described as "the whirlwind" of arrest, interrogation and punishment. Her mistake has been to leave a single sooty fingerprint on her writing desk, and this is enough for Leo to deduce that the diary may well be hidden in the chimney. The consequences of the investigation begin a journey that will strip from Leo the satisfactions of career, status and certainty.
In Agent 6, the action moves between the Soviet Union, New York and Afghanistan. By 1965, Leo, his wife Raisa and their two adopted teenage daughters are living in a cramped apartment that offers the standard living space of the typical Soviet citizen. Privilege has gone but, very slowly, trust has grown between the four of them. Leo's MGB past cannot be buried but it seems to be quiescent.

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