Espionage – nigeladamsbookworm

The Seventh Floor. David McCloskey.

This is the third book in a stated series of four, with the fourth due to be published later this year (2025)

This story is about finding a mole somewhere in the higher ranks of the CIA.

With Artemis Procter still sitting at a desk in the diminished Moscow Station in Langley her patience is running out.

When one of her agents gets snatched in Singapore, whilst meeting with a Russian asset, she starts to suspect things are not right.

The fact that a highly placed asset had recently committed suicide on his return to Moscow only heightens her suspicions.

So when she is sacked by the people she once thought friends she has no choice but to go rogue, and try to out the person she suspects as the traitor, no matter how highly they are positioned.

Meanwhile in Russia two factions are fighting. One wants to act on every piece of information given by the mole in the CIA, one wants to take it more cautiously for fear of tipping their hand.

What follows are struggles in both America and Russia.

At times it’s hard to unwind the twisting plot, and that is where this book is not as good as the first two in the series.

There is too much rambling, too much unnecessary padding with side stories that don’t really add to the main story.

Some bit part characters carry too much detail, with their back stories taking up pages of unnecessary text.

If I awarded star markings both the previous books in the series would have been easy five stars. This one would be a three because of the unnecessary content.

Had this been the first book in the series I doubt I would have finished it, I definitely would not have read any others, but I’m invested and hope that the final book will throw some type of meaning, or give context to some of this story.

Moscow X David McCloskey

Espionage fiction at its best.

When a high ranking KSB Official sends one of his thugs to steal gold from the bank of one of the new rich it tips the first domino in a long and twisting line.

The gold is allegedly being taken back for the people, but why is it this one family is being targeted above the other newly rich and elite making a fortune since the end of the soviet era.

Anna is the daughter who can see her family fortune being taken and has to do something about it., as her father is arrested and jailed.

Vadim is her husband, from the Russian elite and in reality a husband in name only. The wedding was arranged. He’s riding on the success of Anna’s father and is heavily involved in Rushfarm, a stable in the wilds where Anna’s dad runs his empire. He is a violent, greedy egotistical thug.

When Anna starts to follow the trail of the missing gold she finds a lawyer, working in England is helping create off shore accounts where the gold, which has been converted to cash, ends up.

Sia Fox is the Lawyer, and a low level operative for the CIA who are also keeping tracks on the off shore accounts.

When Artemis Proctor, a CIA Station Chief who is serving time in the “penalty box” posting of Moscow X gets a sniff of what is happening she sees an opening to destabilise the Russian Government, and more importantly its President.

But utilising Sia, and another low level operative, the Mexican Max, to create chaos in Russia is a risky plan.

But risk it she does, and so the dominoes continue to tumble.

This book has one main thread it has been knitted into one hell of a plot.

The second book of four in the series it is equally as good, if not better, than the first, Damascus Station.

The only character shared between the two books is almost a bit part player in both books, Artemis Proctor, so this book could easily be read as a stand alone.

Set in modern day Russia I think Anna may be typical of some of the Russian society. She is used to the freedoms previously not associated with the country. She’s independently wealthy and hard working. She’s aware of the anti Russian feeling following the invasion of Ukraine. But she doesn’t want to destabilise the government, yes she doesn’t like the president but she does want him disposed of.

All she wants is to be treated fairly. She doesn’t seem to mind how her father made his money , she just wants revenge on the man who is targeting him.

What will happen if Proctors plan works. Can the world live with a Russia that is unstable.

Will Sia and Max be able to come out of this in one piece.

The one thing I’m learning about David McCloskey’s writing is rule nothing out. He doesn’t mind hurting his characters, he doesn’t mind things going badly wrong, and just like in real life, no matter how careful you think you’ve been, things never quite go as planned.

Bring on book 3 The Seventh Floor.

Pages: 460. Publisher: Swift Press. Available now. Audiobook length: 14.38 hours. Narrator: Andrew B Wehrlen

Damascus Station. David McCloskey

This is one of the easiest reviews I’ve written. Buy the book.

My formative years of reading were taken up reading great espionage books by the likes of Robert Ludlum, Alistair McLean, Nelson Demille and the likes, and rarely have books that come close to their work.

This one does. Billed as the first of four this book it is set around the end of the Assad regime in Syria, and not only looks at American CIA activities but also the in fighting between different factions in Assad’s security and militia, and the rebels seeking to free the country from the Assad regime.

CIA agent Sam specialises in developing assets in foreign countries. So when a woman working at the heart of the Assad regime is thought to be a viable target to turn into an American agent it’s him they send.

Miriam works as an assistant to a high level officer in Assad’s security forces.

Miriam herself is tasked with silencing a rebel who is spreading the anti Assad message throughout Europe.

Unknown to her boss she is also having doubts about the regime, even though her father and uncle are high ranking officers in the Army she sees the tyranny and misjustices that comes with it. Her own cousin is caught at anti government rallies and is beaten badly before her uncle arranges her release.

The story of Sam making contact and attempting to lure Miriam is the main story, but the infighting and politics of the different factions in Syria make this complex and fascinating.

Family members on different sides of the political, and moralistic fences. Fanatics who thrive on violence, and people with more empathy and sympathy, clash within the same factions.

There are those who want war, and those who are not against it, but not at any cost, working for the same people.

How can Sam and Miriam navigate their way through this. Do they both want the same thing, and who is playing who, and to what end.

Not everybody comes out of this book in one piece. The happy-ever-after is not guaranteed. Just like real life the scenarios in this book are messy, and inevitably mistakes are made on both sides as all interested parties look to gain advantage.

This is a great read. At times I sat holding my breath, at others I found myself reading at a frantic speed to find out what happened next.

Brilliantly written, very realistic, great characters and a cracking story.

Pages: 433. Publisher: Swift Press Audiobook length: 12 hours 48. Narrator: Andrew B Wehrlen

The Scarlet Papers. Matthew Richardson

A proper espionage book in the style of writers such as DeMille and Ludlum.

Like all of the best books that have a historical element Richardson has used factual events, and some strong rumours to weave a brilliant fictional tale.

The Cold War is over but the British Secret Services still feel the humiliation of the Cambridge Five. There have been rumours for decades that there was at least one other double agent working for the Russians.

So when the legendary Spy Master Scarlet Queen contacts Max Archer with information on the “6th Man” he is more than intrigued.

Max is a 42 year old, History Lecturer at the London School of Economics. He’s had books published on the history of espionage and specialises in the Cold War era.

The problem is his life is in crisis. His wife just left him and got pregnant, his Professorship isn’t materialising, his publisher is chasing him for his latest book.

When Scarlett contacts him he sees it first as the way to improve his life. Then he realises that to write and publish the book would be breaking the National Secrets Act and has a wobble about writing it.

At first Scarlett drips him information.

He demands more.

The Secret Services are aware of what’s happening and are in turmoils about if to stop the book being written, and if so how they are going to stop it.

A great read based in the modern day but with throwbacks to Scarlett’s career.

Twists and turns are scattered chapter by chapter. Spies, double and triple agents, duplicity, moralistic quandaries all add to the fascination of this story.

Publisher: Penguin. Publishing Date: 25th May 2023

You Can Run. Karen Cleveland

The one genre of book that I keep coming back to is the spy espionage stories.

Over the last few years good ones have become fewer are further between, in fact with the exception of people like Nelson Demille, and David Baldacci, since the demise of Tom Clancy’s original self written books, I have really struggled to find a good author in the genre.

Well that’s changed. Karen Cleveland has written a cracking thriller, which hopefully is the start of a great new series.

You can run is written in the first person from two peoples points of view.

Jill is a CIA analyst who helps to verify foreign agents credibility. The safety of her family is threatened unless she verifies a new Syrian assets, code name Falcon.

She does, but then she runs. Resigning from the Agency and creating a new identity she lives a peaceful life for 4 years.

Alex is a journalist and she receives an anonymous tip telling her that the CIA are receiving a lot of information from a Syrian asset that doesn’t exist.

Determined to publish the story she doesn’t realise she’s about to open a can of worms that will plunge Jill back into danger.

Jill responds the only way she can. She has to get to the bottom of the very issue she ran away from 4 years earlier.

From page one this story is sprinting at a great pace. That pace doesn’t let up till the penultimate chapter, then just when you think you can get your breath back, there is that final chapter.

What a hook.

Loved it

Pages: 336. Publisher: Canelo Crime. Published on: 31st August 2021

The House of Killers. Samantha Lee Howe

Every now and then a book comes along and ticks all my boxes. This is one of those books.

Espionage and Crime Thrillers are my favourite genres of books, tick, tick

Robert Ludlum’s Bourne trilogy and Stig Larsons Millennium trilogy, are two of my favourite series with two of my favourite characters. Neva in The House Of Killers is an amalgamation of Bourne and Salander, Tick, tick

A cracking, believable story that keeps me hooked from start to finish. Tick, tick, tick.

Neva is a Bourne in reverse. She’s an accomplished assassin who feels no empathy for her victims, in fact she is void of any emotions, just like Larson’s Salander. But, something is happening to her, flashback memories to when she was a child. Flashbacks to being abused and trained in a merciless brutal way start to enter her mind, along with the occasional memory of innocent times before she was taken to “The House” to be trained by The Network

Meanwhile Michael Kensington is an MI5 agent who works for a shadowy department that is officially called the Archive Taskforce. A team that on the surface looks at cold cases, but whose main duty is to investigate murders that could be politically motivated assassinations.

Michael has been building a case against one assassin that he is convinced is responsible for a lot of the murders that he has in his system. A clinical killer that specialises in using a very sharp blade. But in recent kills the killer has uncharacteristically got a bit careless, has he found a chink, can he identify the killer.

When Neva kills, “retires” another assassin who works for the “Network” it triggers something inside her, when will it be her turn?

When she cracks and kills another member of The Network, of her own volition, she has to disappear, and she knows she needs help.

A chance meeting between Neva and Michael puts him on her track, but why doesn’t he tell the Archieve team everything, and why does he let her under his skin.

What follows is a very unlikely, but thoroughly believable hook up of the two main characters, but what a dance. Neither fully trusts the other, contact is lost and established at Neva’s behest, but still he trusts her, and in doing so puts his career on the line

This book is stunning. It’s that nugget of gold you spend hour panning a river for, the one that comes along every now and then. The last time I was this excited about finding a new author it was Tom Clancy.

The book had me hooked from the start. The characters are great, Neva is believable, but even in her coldest murderous moments there is something that attracts me to her as a character.

Michael is a typical security service Investigator, more Morse than Bond, reserved, lives alone, does his job, goes home. Just your everyday person doing a police job for a government agency. The perfect foil for Neva’s vicious uncaring character.

This story flew by. The plot runs at a prolific speed and the ending is one I just did not see coming. Usually this would mean the author had thrown in something that would be unrealistic in the plot, but not in this case. There’s a slow build up to it that is cleverly hidden in the plot, and when it manifested itself in the last couple of chapters I could see where it had come from, and I loved the fact that I had been caught by surprise by a brilliant twist.

2021 has given me some of the best books I’ve read for years, and this one is right at the top of the list.

Pages: 432. Publisher: One More Chapter Publishing Date 24th June 2021

Containment. Nick Thacker

A British family on holiday in Canada accidentally cross the boarder into the US. Picked up by a local cop for illegal entry they end up in a small town police station. Days later the adults are dead.

At first it seems they have picked up a deadly virus. But soon it becomes apparent that there’s more to it than that.

Internal politics in the US Immigration and Customs sees Director Derek Biggs need to find an outside source to help him get to the source of the contamination

Enter ex US Army, and ex Boston Police Officer, Jacob Parker, a loner living a life of solitude in rural Massachusetts.

Parker puts together a small team, Beau Shaw a serving Boston Detective, and a virus expert Eliza Mendoza.

As more people become affected by the virus the team become more suspicious as the breakouts are connected to remote immigration centres across America

Is this a naturally occurring disease, or is it some kind of terrorist attack.

The race is on, not everybody is in this to help, not everybody is playing the team game, but who is the odd one out.

A great modern day story that really does not need any big leaps of faith from the reader.

The relationship between the team and the government, the internal relationships in the team, are all part of the suspense.

Will the team find the source of the infections, and is there somebody who is trying to bring chaos to America, or is it a more personal target.

Or, is it just another virulent disease that could bring the country to its knees. Sound Familiar?

A good suspenseful read that had me enthralled for a whole weekend, and then had my mind racing for weeks.

Pages: 315. Publisher: Bookouture, Available now.

The President’s Dossier. James A. Scott

Fans of Ludlum, Demille, and David Baldacci, stop looking for the next to spy author, he’s here. If you love those authors for their full on international espionage thrillers this book is going to be right up your street.

Max Geller is a former CIA agent that left the Company when emails, disparaging to the US President, were found on his works account. If that sounds strangely familiar then the rest of the intrigue around President Walldrum is going to sound really familiar.

Gellar is sought out by a Lawyer representing a group that wants to discredit the President. There are rumours that a dossier has been put together which carries information on how Walldum is in President Putins pocket, and that he had help getting into office.

The Dossier allegedly contains information on how Wulldrum laundered money, took illegal payments, used hookers for rough and humiliating sex, and shows his connections to Putin through the Oligarch network.

So it’s not surprising the Lawyer is offering big money and a no limits expense account.

Gellar puts together a small but efficient team and the hunt for confirmation of the information contained in the Dossiers starts.

Following the trail from America to the U.K, on to Europe and Russia, and back across the Atlantic, Geller goes full Jason Bourne. The story plot thickens as the body count mounts.

Everybody appears to want the information the team are uncovering, MI6, The CIA and the FBI, Oligarchs, and The Russian Security Services are all after Max and his team, and none of them are friendly.

Nobody can be trusted. Even Max’s closest allies in his team come under suspicion as the various agencies get way too close to Max

This book races around the world at a frantic rate, and had me turning the pages at the same speed.

It’s a real throwback to the spy stories that were popular in the 70’s and 80’, and I loved those books.

I mentioned a few authors at the start of this review and James A. Scott will sit comfortably amongst that group with this book.

If, like me, you’ve been waiting for a book like this, don’t plan on doing anything once you’ve started it, because you won’t put it down till you’ve finished it.

It’s an absolute stunner of a read and hopefully the first of many

Pages: 320

Publishers: Oceanview Publishing

Publication date U.K: 15 September 2020

Double Agent. Tom Bradby

A follow up book to Secret Agent, released this time last year, this book picks up the story of senior MI6 Officer Kate Henderson.

Her husband, who has been identified as a Russian Agent is now living in Moscow, but Kate has managed to take their children to meet him on a trip to Venice. During the trip Kate is kidnapped by a Russian agent who offers her unassailable proof that the U.K. Prime Minister is working for the Russians and that a change of power in the Kremlin is taking place.

To give credence to this he also tells her about a ending revolution in Estonia, which is attempted the next day.

Back in the U.K. Kate takes the information to her boss. He’s keen to exploit the information and give in to the demands of the Russian agent who, in turn wants to defect with his family to England.but others in MI6 aren’t so sure, and neither are the politicians.

The story continues with Kate trying to authenticate the truth about the Kremlin and the evidence on the PM.

At one point in the book Kate’s son jokingly asks her if she’s a female James Bond. She is but the story is so much more than the usual all action espionage thriller. It looks at the effect the job has on Kate, her physical and mental health, and her family. The tension, the lack of sleep, the constant second guessing, not just her own decisions but those of the people around her, takes it out of her.

The story also looks at the complex political and personal relationships formed, and in places abused, in the hallow halls of parliament, and the insular offices of the “MI…” departments of the security services.

I enjoyed nearly all of this book but, and it’s a big but, with only a few pages left I was thinking how is this going to finish. I was reading on a kindle and even checked if I had fully downloaded the book.

The answer was it didn’t.

It did, the story finishes, as in there is an end to the book, but there’s no conclusion. It just feels like the end of another chapter. If it was meant to be a cliffhanger it didn’t work. Even if there is another book in the series I would have liked a less ambiguous ending to this one.

Pages: 368
Publisher: Bantam Press
Publishing date: 28th May 2020

A Treachery of Spies. Manda Scott

Two great stories rolled into one. A second world war espionage story that Len Deighton would have been proud of, and a modern crime story worthy of any of the present day authors writing excellent crime fiction.

The murder of an elderly lady in Orleans, France, is a horrible crime at the best of times. The fact that she has been executed and then mutilated, in a very specific manner, makes the crime even more hideous.

Enter Captain Ines Picaut of the French Police, and her small team. Picaut is recently returned to work having been badly burnt in a house fire but us soon into her stride.

The team tentatively identify the woman and link her to a production company making a TV series about a band of French Resistance Fighters during the Second World War.

The investigation will lead them to start to uncovering facts about the dead woman, and the part she played in the Resistance.

Here starts the second story. That of spies, double agents and treachery. The story of a young woman that escapes from occupied Europe and is trained as an agent that can work with the Resistance. She will work behind enemy lines with agents from across Europe and with French citizens trying to free their own country.

Whilst in France she will encounter; French people who sympathise with the Germans and see the retribution that is brought on them by their own Countrymen; she will have to work with people she despises and decide on which of the people she likes will die.

The small band that makes up her group all seem to have the same allegiances, but have they??

Who is on her side, and who feeding the enemy information.

As the two stories unfold, the modern day investigation, and the second world war drama, identities are uncovered. Nobody is who they seem, and somebody is acting as puppet master, pulling all the strings, but to what end.

I have used no names, except for the present day Police Captain’s, in this review. There is a good reason for that. Some of the characters in this book have multiple identities, because they have worked for different countries and different agencies. To use any of the names might be a bit of a spoiler to the story.

And this is an excellent story that I would hate to spoil for anybody.

Amongst most new fiction this is a tomb of a book at nearly 500 pages. Every page is a pleasure to read. The pace of the book is frantic but very enjoyable.

I have loved WW II stories since I was a young teenager, and I may be being nostalgic, but reading this book has made me wish there were more being written today.

Pages: 480

Publisher: Bantam Press, Random House

Publishing Date: 9th August 2018