Tag Archives: spy thriller

#BookReview ‘A Cold Wind from Moscow’ by Rory Clements #thriller #ColdWar

#BookReview ‘Gabriel’s Moon’ by William Boyd #spy #thriller

Gabriel’s Moon by William Boyd could actually be titled ‘The Accidental Spy’ because that’s what Gabriel Dax is. What a wonderful spy novel this is, it plays with the idea of mistaken memory, mistaken perceptions and dangerous obsession. A Sixties Cold War thriller wrapped up in stellar writing. I raced through it. Travel writer Gabriel Dax has a dream singleton’s life. A flat in Chelsea, journalistic assignments taking him around the world, he is the author of three books and has an occasional girlfriend, Lorraine, who provides fun without committment. On location in the Congo, Dax is sent by his editor to do a political interview with the country’s new prime minister. This is unfamiliar territory for Gabriel but he takes the opportunity, hoping it may lead to more work. On the flight home he is surprised, and delighted, to see a fellow passenger reading one of his books. What follows next are a series of events he later realises are not coincidences.
In London he is surprised to see the woman from the plane near his house, but she disappears before he can speak to her. Then on a cold January day he is eating a lonely plate of spaghetti in the Café Matisse when the same woman approaches his table. She introduces herself as Faith Green and says she recognises him as the author of the book she was reading on the plane from Léopoldville. Then she drops two bombshells, that Patrice Lumumba, the prime minister who Gabriel interviewed, is dead. And that she would like him to do ‘us’ a ‘small favour’ as he has done in the past for his brother Sefton, mostly delivering packages. But when Faith says ‘us,’ she means MI6.
The favours that Gabriel undertakes for Faith are always mysterious, taking him to Spain and Poland. Operating on sparse information and cryptic instructions, Gabriel quickly learns to look over his shoulder and to trust his instincts. After each job he pockets the cash and vows never to work for Faith Green again, until the next time she asks. He becomes unable to say no to her, his attraction evolves into obsession.
Woven through Gabriel’s adventures as a reluctant spy are matters closer to home. The death of his mother when he was six in a house fire, from which he escaped, has left him with insomnia and nightmares. So Gabriel starts to see Dr Katerina Haas who recommends anamnesis, the search of facts that aid the return of memory. The family strand of the story encompasses Gabriel’s relationship with his two remaining relatives. His uncle Aldous Dax, who raised Gabriel when he was orphaned, is an art dealer. Older brother Sefton does something unspecified in the Foreign Office. Boyd handles his intricate plotting with a light hand, Gabriel never really knows what is happening and neither does the reader; but it is fun guessing.
William Boyd never disappoints, from cradle to the grave stories such as Any Human Heart, the story of a young pianist in Love is Blind, and a mix of sex and spies in Waiting for Sunrise, he reliably takes you away from the modern world as you sink into the world of his story.
Excellent.

Gabriel’s Moon is first in the Gabriel Dax trilogy. Here’s my review of THE PREDICAMENT, second in the Gabriel Dax trilogy.

Here are 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:-
‘Nucleus’ by Rory Clements #2TOMWILDE
‘Wolf Winter’ by Cecilia Ekback
‘The Traitor’ by Ava Glass #2ALIASEMMA

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#BookReview GABRIEL’S MOON by William Boyd https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8n5 via @SandraDanby

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

#BookReview ‘Invasion’ by @FrankRGardner #thriller #war

1 Reply

Invasion by Frank Gardner is so lifelike it is terrifying. Fourth in the Luke Carlton series, I enjoyed it so much I’m going back to the beginning, the first book. The pace of the story is relentless from the first page. China is preparing to invade Taiwan. British intelligence sends a ‘collector,’ a volunteer citizen and ‘clean skin,’ to Hong Kong to collect top secret data from a spy deep in the Chinese Communist Party. But when climate scientist Dr Hannah Slade goes missing, all hell breaks loose. As the Secret Intelligence Service sends its best to Hong Kong to find her, a team of Chinese genetically-enhanced super soldiers are on board black inflatable boats heading for tiny Yanyu Island. Part of Taiwan but too small to defend, the Chinese hail success as they plant a flag on Taiwanese territory. Geo-political tensions rise, the US, the UK and Aukus send ships to the region. Meanwhile the Chinese are planning a full-scale invasion of Taiwan island itself.
Luke Carlton and Jenny Li are sent to recover Hannah. Posing as holidaymakers their cover is quickly blown. But who is giving them the tip-offs, local gangsters, fellow Five Eyes operatives, Chinese agents, Taiwanese agents? Sensing danger everywhere, trusting no-one, Luke and Jenny rely on their phones which allow covert updates to be sent back and forth to Vauxhall Cross; swapping information, identifying faces, receiving approval for their next move. Luke and Jenny move from Hong Kong to Macau, going from one dead end to another, until they are told Hannah was put on a ship bound for Taiwan.
Short chapters emphasize the quick pace of the action, moving from Hannah to Luke and Jenny, back to Vauxhall Cross and then to London politicians and the British navy racing to the danger zone. I lost track of the military details, the jargon, the model numbers of weapons and military kit, but stopped worrying about it; it reminded me of reading Robert Ludlum when I would skip a chapter to get to the action.
Up-to-date and frighteningly real, the tech is so hot it makes you look at your smartphone with suspicion.
Very good and read very quickly.
Next up is the first book, Crisis.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Chase’ by Ava Glass #1AliasEmma
‘Never’ by Ken Follett
‘The Travelers’ by Chris Pavone

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#BookReview INVASION by @FrankRGardner https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8cm via @SandraDanby

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

#BookReview ‘The Traitor’ by Ava Glass #thriller

1 Reply

I loved The Chase, the first Alias Emma book by Ava Glass, and wondered if she could match it. The Traitor is just as good and I read it just as quickly. Fast-moving on every page, the action is this second novel featuring spy Emma Makepeace moves from London to a superyacht on the Mediterranean. The story begins as a British spy is found dead in a suitcase in his London apartment. He has been poisoned with a nerve agent. No fingerprints. No DNA. Stephen Garrick’s latest case was shadowing two oligarchs who are illegal arms dealers. He knew of a third man but not the identity. Before he died, Garrick was following someone in Pimlico. Did he get too close? Did the Russians kill him? And is there a traitor in the British government? Who will Emma’s boss Ripley trust with information about this case and will it be kept secret even from government ministers and civil servants?
Emma goes undercover on the superyacht ‘The Eden’ joining a small crew where there is nowhere to hide. The boat is owned by Andrei Volkov, code name Gold Dust I. Emma and Ripley hope Volkov will invite Gold Dust II, Oleg Federov, onto his yacht. Emma has three objectives – to find a smoking gun linking Volkov to illegal arms sales, to prove his link to Federov, and to identify Gold Dust III, the mysterious third man in the Russian weapons smuggling ring. There is no place to hide and, off shore most of the time, there is no mobile signal. Emma is on her own as they set sail from St Tropez for Barcelona.
As the story progresses, it’s difficult to know if Emma is safer at sea or on land. As Jessica Marshall, housemaid, her access to certain areas on board is restricted and Volkov’s bodyguard is tough and suspicious. Perhaps she can get closer to Volkov’s American girlfriend, Madison.
Great continuation characters – Ripley, Martha, Zach – add to the context of the shadowy ‘Agency’ which sits independently between MI5 and MI6. Ripley worked for MI6 in Russia at the end of the Cold War. Zach is a tech wizard; Martha provides the clothing and disguises. They are a tightknit team.
I didn’t want to put it down. Next in the series is The Trap.

Here’s my review of the first Alias Emma book:-
THE CHASE

If you like this, try:-
‘Waiting for Sunrise’ by William Boyd
‘Before the Fall’ by Noah Hawley
‘Never’ by Ken Follett

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE TRAITOR by Ava Glass https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-86m via @SandraDanby

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

#BookReview ‘The Chase’ by Ava Glass #thriller

4 Replies

Wow I loved this book, devoured it in three long reading sessions. The Chase by Ava Glass is a classy, non-stop thriller of a chase through London at night. Newish spy Emma Makepeace (not her real name) has been charged with finding a man wanted by the Russians and taking him to a safe place. Her only problems are that Michael Primalov doesn’t want to go with her; London is jam-packed with CCTV cameras; the Russians are ace at hacking cameras; and somehow the men chasing them are second guessing her decisions. Emma’s boss Ripley gives her three rules; no tech, move fast, stay dark. And then he disappears. Emma and Michael are on their own.
Interleaved with chapters about Emma and Michael running, their sparring and arguing becoming less rough-edged as they mould into a team, helping each other to survive, are chapters about Emma’s early life and spy training. This works well as an introduction to Emma, this is the first book of a series, and those who work around her.
There is no one else who can help them and Emma’s escape route is full of risks and unknowns. All she has to rely on are her own bravery, training, wit and risk-taking. Paediatric cancer specialist Michael turns out to be something of a surprise
This is an awkward review to write without giving away the plot. Think of all those adjectives you can that relate to tension, and apply to this book. Unbearable. Nail-biting. Non-stop. Top-speed. Gut-churning. Thrilling. Frightening. An escapist thrill of a read, this is the first in the Alias Emma series, I’ll soon be reading the second The Traitor.

If you like this, try:-
‘Panic Room’ by Robert Goddard
‘Munich Wolf’ by Rory Clements
‘The Farm’ by Tom Rob Smith

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#BookReview THE CHASE by Ava Glass https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-811 via @SandraDanby

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

#BookReview ‘The English Führer’ by Rory Clements #thriller #WW2

9 Replies

It is autumn 1945 and Cambridge history professor Tom Wilde, American citizen, has returned to his daytime job. The war is over. Or is it. The English Führer, seventh in the Tom Wilde spy series by Rory Clements, hits the ground running as a Japanese submarine waits off the coast of Norfolk. Yet again, Tom and his wife Lydia are in danger. But Lydia is living in a hostel in London as she trains as a doctor – pretending to be a single woman in order to qualify for study – while Tom and Johnny have a new housekeeper at home in Cambridge. When the quiet Norfolk village next to an American airbase is subjected to a strange plague, its residents dead and dying, Wilde finds himself pulled back into the world of the security services. He calls on familiar faces – Philip Eaton of MI6, ‘Dagger’ Templeman of MI5, old friend and GP Rupert Weir and Bill Donovan, Wilde’s old boss of America’s wartime security service, Office of Strategic Services [OSS] – and new ones, some of whom may not be who they appear to be. As a spy during the war, Tom has grown used to dissembling but acting a role is a new territory for Lydia who must convincingly appear to be unmarried and not a mother, or be thrown out of St Ursula’s Hospital Medical School. New characters include Lydia’s fellow medical student, room-mate and addict of spy stories Miranda March; Danny Oswick, new history student with a dodgy moustache and even dodgier past; and widow Syliva Keane who moves into the Wilde house as Tom’s new housekeeper in Cambridge but who disappears once a week.
As previously, Wilde must work out who to trust, treading a fine line between wrong and right, to get to the heart of the truth. What is a Japanese biological weapon doing in England and who are the plotters? Japanese. Fascists. Communists. The clues are myriad and the web woven by Clements is at times impenetrable, the story telling is compelling.
A series that is so addictive that when you finish one book you want to start the next immediately.

And from the Sebastian Wolff series:-
MUNICH WOLF #1SEBASTIANWOLFF

If you like this, try:-
‘The Diamond Eye’ by Kate Quinn
‘The Partisan’ by Patrick Worrall
‘An Officer and a Spy’ by Robert Harris

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#BookReview THE ENGLISH FÜHRER by Rory Clements https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-6tH via @SandraDanby

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

#BookReview ‘Spook Street’ by Mick Herron #spy #thriller

8 Replies

Read in entirety on a train journey, Spook Street by Mick Herron is an absorbing tale of 21^st century spies and terrorists combined with old-school tactics of indoctrination. The story, fourth in Herron’s ‘Slough House’ spy series, opens straight into the action with a flash mob bomb attack unsuspected by the security services. When the ‘OB’ – the elderly former-spy grandfather of slow horse employee River Cartwright – says stoats are on his trail, his claims are dismissed as advancing senility. Until a man is shot at the OB’s house and the old man disappears. This a story with a tight timeline, everything takes place within a couple of days of the first page. This brings an urgency to the danger and also makes the pages turn quickly. For Slough House fans, there are a couple of new characters to adjust to – Moira Tregorian has taken over the administrator’s desk previously occupied by Catherine Standish, and River now shares an office with the silent, hoody-wearing JK Coe. No one is sure why the latter is there, ie what he has done wrong to deserve being sent to Slough House, or the nature of his particular skill. Jackson Lamb may be a sarcastic, shabby, foul-mouthed drunk but he is also a skilled and wily operative. So when one of his team is threatened, he leaves no stone unturned.
Witty, sharp and fast-paced, this bunch of passed-over has-beens once again demonstrates that the compulsory tradecraft training required of all new recruits to the security services is never forgotten. There are less of the political jibes which were a feature of the earlier books but the darkly funny ping-pong sparring between office colleagues continues. Slough House is a place of painfully slow boring work, digital paper shuffling, of dirty coffee cups and closely-defended territories [desks], it’s a place where even the radiators work slowly. But when one of the slow horses is threatened, everyone leaps into action grabbing whatever unlikely weapons that are to hand.
The storylines are unpredictable, the characters are oddities who somehow manage to work together, and the humour is wicked. Excellent.

Click the title to read my reviews of the other books in the Slough House series:-
SLOW HORSES #1SLOUGHHOUSE
DEAD LIONS #2SLOUGHHOUSE
REAL TIGERS #3SLOUGHHOUSE
LONDON RULES #5SLOUGHHOUSE
JOE COUNTRY #6SLOUGHHOUSE
SLOUGH HOUSE #7SLOUGHHOUSE
BAD ACTORS #8SLOUGHHOUSE

If you like this, try:-
‘The Farm’ by Tom Rob Smith
‘The Second Midnight’ by Andrew Taylor
‘Panic Room’ by Robert Goddard

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:-
#BookReview SPOOK STREET by Mick Herron https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5Nu via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Slow Horses’ by Mick Herron #spy #thriller

10 Replies

Always on the lookout for a new thriller series to sink into, I am a late discoverer of the Jackson Lamb books by Mick Herron. Soon to be filmed as ‘Slough House’ and starring Gary Oldman as Lamb, it seemed a good time to start with book one, Slow Horses. Lamb is the quixotic leader of Slough House, the place where British spies go when they have messed up. They work in a scruffy non-descript building doing boring, repetitive, desk-based jobs and dream of going on ‘ops.’ The reason for each person’s banishment is not spoken by some pact of olvidado but they are all intensely curious about each other. Very much on the outside, they are derided at the Park, the Regent’s Park MI5 headquarters run by ‘dogs’ and ‘achievers.’ The book is littered with spy language, at first confusing, but soon accepted without a second thought.
As always, the first book in a series can be slow to progress, given the need to establish characters, setting and world. And there are a lot of characters, some of whom were cardboard cut-outs with names. The action really gets moving with Hassan, a student who has been kidnapped by three white racists. His beheading is scheduled to take place live and be broadcast on the internet. Members of Slough House are pulled into an op which threatens to go badly wrong, not helped by the intense secrecy and rivalry of everyone involved. Not to mention lots of chips on shoulders. This is not a team and Lamb is not a leader, instead he sits in his top-floor office and is rarely seen.
Slow Horses features a bunch of dysfunctional characters who are unattractive and secretive and the link of the spies to Hassan’s plight is slow to appear. When it does, the story takes off as the team are yanked from their torpidity, told to use their initiative and become the spies they were trained to be. I can’t say I ended the book feeling I had access to Lamb’s character but then he is a spy and so inaccessible, opaque, contradictory. He is also irreverent, funny, disgusting, authority-hating, rude and strangely likeable. Interesting characters I want to see more of include Slough House agent River Cartwright, his grandfather the ‘OB’ who is retired and lives in Tonbridge, and slimy politician PJ who has a wonderful basement kitchen.
Next in the seven-book ‘Slough House’ series is Dead Lions which I will read soon in the expectation that Jackson Lamb’s past will be revealed.

Click the title to read my reviews of the other books in the Slough House series:-
DEAD LIONS #2SLOUGHHOUSE
REAL TIGERS #3SLOUGHHOUSE
SPOOK STREET #4SLOUGHHOUSE
LONDON RULES #5SLOUGHHOUSE
JOE COUNTRY #6SLOUGHHOUSE
SLOUGH HOUSE #7SLOUGHHOUSE
BAD ACTORS #8SLOUGHHOUSE

If you like this, try:-
‘Panic Room’ by Robert Goddard
‘The Travelers’ by Chris Pavone
‘The Farm’ by Tom Rob Smith

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview SLOW HORSES by Mick Herron https://wp.me/p5gEM4-57J via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Exposure’ by Helen Dunmore #thriller #spy

3 Replies

Exposure is a powerful novel by Helen Dunmore about the effect of the Cold War on one family, thrilling yet subtle. One night in 1960, Simon Callington’s colleague falls and breaks a leg. He rings Simon and asks him to go to his flat, retrieve a document he had taken home from work, and return it to their office. And so begins a tale of official secrets, spies, cover-ups, all told through the prism of this one family, the Callingtons. This is not a traditional spy novel, there are no car chases or killings, but it is taut with tension and threat felt within the routine domesticity of Callingtons’ home. The impact of Giles’s plea for help, and Simon’s subsequent actions, changes everyone’s lives. They are living in a time of secrets and suspicion. Lily, Simon’s wife, is a German Jew brought to England by her mother before the Second World War. As a child, Lily was taught by her mother to fit in with the English, to hide her foreignness. Her life is one of secrets and covering up, when suddenly it becomes real; her husband is accused of espionage, of passing secrets to the Russians. Lily is convinced he is innocent but her instinct is to protect her children, even though she is unsure who the enemy is.
The story unfolds quickly, alternating between Simon and Lily’s viewpoints while from Giles we learn secrets of which Lily is unaware. And all the time, the three Callington children see and listen and understand more than their mother can expect.
Excellent. Helen Dunmore is a go-to author for me, whose hardback books I buy to keep and re-read.

Read my reviews of two other novels by Helen Dunmore:-
BIRDCAGE WALK
THE LIE

If you like this, try:-
‘The Diamond Eye’ by Kate Quinn
‘The Aftermath’ by Rhidian Brooke
‘After the Bombing’ by Clare Morrall

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#BookReview EXPOSURE by Helen Dunmore http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1SI via @SandraDanby

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SANDRA DANBY'S BOOK REVIEWS

Sharing thoughts on the books I read, new authors, favourite authors, classics re-visisted

Tag Archives: spy thriller

#BookReview ‘A Cold Wind from Moscow’ by Rory Clements #thriller #ColdWar

#BookReview ‘Gabriel’s Moon’ by William Boyd #spy #thriller

#BookReview ‘Invasion’ by @FrankRGardner #thriller #war

#BookReview ‘The Traitor’ by Ava Glass #thriller

#BookReview ‘The Chase’ by Ava Glass #thriller

#BookReview ‘The English Führer’ by Rory Clements #thriller #WW2

#BookReview ‘Spook Street’ by Mick Herron #spy #thriller

#BookReview ‘Slow Horses’ by Mick Herron #spy #thriller

#BookReview ‘Exposure’ by Helen Dunmore #thriller #spy

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