Jon Morgan is a retired police Superintendent and francophile who, it is said, has consequently seen almost everything awful that people can do to each other. He relishes quality writing in all genres but advises particularly on police procedure for authors including John Harvey and Jon McGregor. Haunts bookshops both new and secondhand and stands with Erasmus: “When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I may buy food and clothes.”
Oh God, not another spy novel,
I thought to myself as I started reading. Three hours later I realised how very
wrong I was! Yes it is a spy novel, yes
it is contemporary, with an apparent populist and vacillating politician in
Number 10, (and an un-named idiot in the White House) but that is only to
scratch the surface of this stylish and well written book which has more twists
and turns than a very twisty-turny thing.
Kate Henderson, a senior SIS
employee is in Venice. Ostensibly on a family holiday with her two teenage
children. In fact she is there to meet her estranged husband, a senior British
civil servant turned traitor for the Russians; a man who has turned Kate’s life
upside down, is linked to the death of
several of her operatives in a failed mission when she is abducted by the son
of a Russian spymaster apparently offering to defect with his family and a whole host explosive secrets.
That earlier mission, dealt
with in the previous novel ‘Secret Service,’ was connected with formerly closed allegations against the new
British Prime Minister that he is a Russian plant, a traitor and the biggest
danger to National Security since, well, ever! Russian threats to a Nato member – Estonia – and
fractures within the NATO alliance are also laid bare and thrown into the mix.
As a result of the defector’s
offer, new evidence comes to light which sets Kate off on a mission to
ascertain whether the allegations are true. This is a mission which will test
her to her limits and beyond as she is still reeling from the mental scars left
by the previous failed operation, a poisonous relationship with her
Alzheimer's-stricken mother and the
fallout from the disintegration of her marriage. Along the way, the rival
Security Service across the river is investigating her and senior colleagues
and has them all under (less than competent) surveillance and she does not know
who to trust.
From Berlin to St Petersburg, Moscow
and Tbilisi, this fast paced and intelligent thriller rarely pauses, but it is
also sown with flashes of dark humour and psychological truth. Although it is
fiction, it may well leave you wondering how firm the foundations of our
parliamentary and democratic institutions are, and who, exactly, you should
trust within those institutions, if anyone!
