Tag Archives: spy novels

#BookReview ‘Cold Sunset’ by William Boyd #spy #thriller

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Cold Sunset is the third Gabriel Dax spy thriller by William Boyd. I was hooked from the first, Gabriel’s Moon, and so turned to page one of Cold Sunset with high anticipation. It is the Sixties, the Cold War and Gabriel, a travel writer cum reluctant spy, is in Los Angeles waiting to meet a poet. William BoydThe meat of Gabriel’s assignment in Cold Sunset is to go to Moscow to bring in MI6’s man in Russia, triple agent Kit Caldwell who is desperate to return to London. Gabriel’s visit to LA, and another to Indianapolis, may seem superfluous but read them carefully, there are hints at the deeper story. His Institute of Development Studies handler and occasional lover from the previous two books, Faith Green, is still giving him orders. Faith’s job is to root out traitors and when the dying poet tells Gabriel that a former colleague from Bletchley Park is a Soviet spy, Faith sends Gabriel to Indianapolis to check it out. It is a road that leads to Moscow, St Petersburg and the northernmost Finnish-Soviet border. The betrayal, Faith fears, could be a threat as serious as the Cambridge Five and she is under pressure to identify the new traitor, the ‘terminte.’
Gabriel is a patriot, a freelance writer trying to make a living, a single man with romantic entanglements, he leads a double-life and is unable to say no to Faith whenever she gives him a mission. The difference is that now he is not a novice at killing men. He knows enough tradecraft to lay false clues, spot a tail and speak in spook language. Yes Boyd’s Gabriel Dax books are spy thrillers but the action is not full-on, they are also studies in human nature, in relationships, in the detail of daily life in the Sixties. The finding of a cleaner for his Sussex cottage, leaving out food to tempt Cat his occasionally visiting feline neighbour to be a permanent resident, forgetting to change the sheets on his bed at his London crashpad, his inability to say no to a night with an old girlfriend. Gabriel feels real. People smoked and drunk alcohol more than they do now, it was possible to appear and disappear without leaving a trace, postcards written with short messages were delivered quickly by post.
Reading a William Boyd thriller is like reading no other. A combination of dry wit and literary references, stomach-clenching tension and the ordinary everyday of buying fish and wine for lunch, nervous suspicion and outright fear, Cold Sunset is so Boydian. I had a fondness for his Sussex neighbour Royston Mitchell-Moore in his cherry red corduroy trousers, and old roué Norman Helenhill who reminded me of Olivia Manning’s Prince Yakimov in Fortunes of War.
I do hope there will be another Gabriel Dax book, the enigmatic ending suggests there will be. If you think you don’t like thrillers, try Boyd.

Here are my reviews of other Gabriel Dax books:-
GABRIEL’S MOON #1GABRIELDAX
THE PREDICAMENT #2GABRIELDAX

… and my reviews of other books by William Boyd:-
ANY HUMAN HEART
LOVE IS BLIND
NAT TATE: AN AMERICAN ARTIST 1928-1960
ORDINARY THUNDERSTORMS
SWEET CARESS
THE BLUE AFTERNOON
THE DREAMS OF BETHANY MELLMOTH
TRIO
WAITING FOR SUNRISE

… and try the first paragraph of ARMADILLO.

If you like this, try these:-
‘Exposure’ by Helen Dunmore
‘Midnight in Europe’ by Alan Furst
‘The Partisan’ by Patrick Worrall

And if you’d like to share a link:
#BookReview COLD SUNSET by William Boyd https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-adF via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Sebastian Barry

#BookReview ‘Bad Actors’ by Mick Herron #spy #thriller

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I’ve loved every one of the Slough House books by Mick Herron. In Bad Actors, eighth in the series about the reject spies, the Prime Minister’s special advisor has plans to reform the intelligence service. Break it and re-make it is his motto. But this threatens First Desk Diana Taverner, who has a few things to hide, as well as Jackson Lamb and his eccentric failures in the anonymous office in East London. Mick HerronA ‘superspreading’ specialist working for Downing Street has disappeared, Russia’s First Desk has flown into London and gone off radar and Shirley Dander is banished to ‘The San,’ a retreat in the West Country for spies who’ve gone off the rails. Meanwhile SPAD disruptor Anthony Sparrow – who calls anything ‘fake news’ if it doesn’t suit his storyline – is seen eating at an anonymous pizza restaurant in London which is odd as he does nothing without a scheme.
It takes a while for the details to connect, for the full impact of what is happening, to sink in. The certainty is that what is expected to go well will always be a car crash. Devious, selfish, deluded politicians, each with their own plan for advancement, cause problems for the slow horses who are sent by Jackson Lamb on missions that sound safe, innocuous and boring but turn out to be anything but. Roddy Ho’s computer wizardry takes centre stage and it’s good to see a full storyline given to Shirley Dander.
There is an element of predictability in the plot structure, perhaps inevitable in what is becoming a long series. Threat, Slough House endangered, Lamb’s unlikely spies save the day. But this doesn’t negate the enjoyment and Herron is so good at surprises. The wit is laugh-out-loud.
Twisty, turny, loopy, always surprising. Never disappoints. For true appreciation, start with Book One.

Click the title to read my reviews of the previous books in the Slough House series:-
SLOW HORSES #1SLOUGHHOUSE
DEAD LIONS #2SLOUGHHOUSE
REAL TIGERS #3SLOUGHHOUSE
SPOOK STREET #4SLOUGHHOUSE
LONDON RULES #5SLOUGHHOUSE
JOE COUNTRY #6SLOUGHHOUSE
SLOUGH HOUSE #7SLOUGHHOUSE
CLOWN TOWN #9SLOUGHHOUSE

If you like this, try:-
‘Five Days of Fog’ by Anna Freeman
‘I Found You’ by Lisa Jewell
‘The Second Midnight’ by Andrew Taylor

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview BAD ACTORS by Mick Herron https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-6K4 via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Joanna Trollope