Double Agent

Written by Tom Bradby

Review written by Jon Morgan

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.”


Double Agent
Bantam Press
RRP: £12.99
Released: May 28, 2020
Hbk

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!



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