Anyone praised by John Le Carré deserves a meticulously researched and atmospheric biography such as Owen Matthews’ An Impeccable Spy: Richard Sorge, Stalin’s Master Agent (Bloomsbury, £25; Tablet price £22.50). Russian-born Sorge spied for Stalin in China and Japan, even joining the Nazi Party and befriending the German ambassador. Working undercover as a journalist, his intelligence on how Japan might act – to attack China or the USSR – was central to the Soviet counter-offensive in the Battle of Moscow. Until the Japanese executed him in 1944, he believed that his Communist masters would come to his rescue.