Karen spent 30+ years as a Civil Servant, mostly in Revenue which is where she developed my absolute hatred of poor writing skills! Her favourite genre is now crime/thriller/police procedural/legal genre with the occasional foray into chick-lit and general fiction.
This extraordinary novel is a highly prescient tale of Russian Sleeper Agents in America, uncovered and investigated by CIA Analyst Vivian Miller, but in so doing she discovers that her husband maybe connected, and that her family is now in jeopardy.
Torn between loyalty and love, Vivian Miller has some tough decisions to make that will not only affect her, but also her young children. Cleveland’s narrative follows our CIA Analyst as she works through this complex situation, keeping the reader on edge as the plot twists and turns like a serpent.
Written in an engaging and knowing style, it is little surprise that author Karen Cleveland was a former CIA Analyst; but what is a surprise is that Need to Know is a debut novel.
Dialogue heavy, and complete with tradecraft torn from the looking glass world of international espionage, this novel is remarkable. It enters psychological thriller territory for a blanket of paranoia falls upon the proceedings, as Vivian Miller soon finds she is falling under suspicion as there appears a double agent embedded within the operation.
The intensity of the narrative coupled to the robust writing places the reader into a trance, as it is a fast and furious read, with a dénouement that sucks the air from the reader’s lungs.
It may be a lazy cliché for a book reviewer to use the term “one-sitting read”, but for Need to Know, it is no cliché, but a true observation.
