SECRETS and spies

A Romanian double agent tries to defect to the USA in a Cold War thriller

- CAREN CLARK, ALISON SLADE, IAN MACEWAN

NEW THRILLER

Spy/Master Saturday, 9pm & 9.50pm, BBC4 (box set, BBC iPlayer)

Loosely based on the exploits of a real-life spy, six-part espionage thriller Spy/Master tells the gripping story of a high-ranking member of the Romanian secret service who attempts to defect to America when he is about to be unmasked as a double agent at the height of the Cold War in the late 1970s.

Romanian actor Alec Secareanu, previously seen in crime drama Happy Valley, stars as Victor Godeanu – the right-hand man and personal adviser to Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu – who, unbeknown to his country’s paranoid leader, is working as a mole for the KGB.