A fun, if slightly flawed, wartime espionage tale.
This sequel follows an American and British spy team during World War II.
England, 1942. The crucial secrets of Bletchley Park, Britain’s code and cipher school, are in jeopardy. Swedish cryptologist Gunnar Lind has disappeared from the school, and it is vital to the war effort that his knowledge of Britain’s code-breaking program doesn’t end up in Nazi hands. Winston Churchill knows just whom he wants for the mission: Conor Thorn and Emily Bright. Conor is an agent of the OSS, America’s newly inaugurated intelligence agency. He’s known for his rather reckless methods—like his recent shootout with German spies in the Lisbon airport. Emily is an MI6 agent who worked with Conor successfully on his previous mission—and who has developed strong feelings for him despite herself. Conor is a bit distracted after recently learning that his wife, Grace, was raped not long before her death. Emily goes ahead to Stockholm to search for Lind, but when she turns up missing, Conor must go after her, accompanied by the cryptologist’s highly suspicious wife, Eve. With so many emotions involved, it’s all but inevitable that Conor will resort to even more reckless tactics to save Emily and the Allied war effort. Dyer’s detailed prose excels at evoking the feel of World War II spycraft—or at least the sense of it that readers have in their minds: An operative’s “suite at the Grand was impressively spacious, as well as being neat and orderly, as if an army of maids had just left….A small envelope lay on top of the paper. An ashtray, free from any ash, was placed alongside the newspaper and a pack of Chesterfield cigarettes, unopened.” The book features the requisite historical cameos—Alan Turing, Edward R. Murrow, Ian Fleming—and plenty of cloak-and-dagger encounters, which will please readers enough to ignore the rather contrived plot. Grace’s assault seems a bit exploitatively dark for this sort of novel, which can at times feel quite cartoonish. But fans of this genre will enjoy Dyer’s handling of the setting and the tropes.
A fun, if slightly flawed, wartime espionage tale.Pub Date: June 9, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-9991173-6-1
Page Count: 376
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Cleveland engenders deep paranoia for the susceptibility of U.S. intelligence—under the guise of entertainment.
“How well do any of us know our neighbors?” This question anchors Cleveland’s latest novel as a CIA analyst fights against the clock to keep Iranian intelligence from infiltrating the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System.
Beth Bradford’s life is in transition: Her youngest son has just started college, and she and her husband are moving out of the house where all three of their kids grew up, away from the McLean, Virginia, neighborhood where their best friends still live. Their marriage is also fading; Beth’s only solace is that she will have more time to devote to preventing Iranian intelligence from infiltrating the network using an asset only known as “The Neighbor.” Despite her almost 20 years on the case, however, she is suddenly reassigned to a teaching gig, losing her high-level security clearance and her professional raison d’être. The last bit of intelligence she (surreptitiously) accesses is a short message: “The Neighbor has found a new cul-de-sac.” Determined to figure out the identity of The Neighbor before national security is compromised, she begins to surveill her old neighborhood, noticing for the first time how most of her friends, in addition to the woman who bought her house, have their own secrets and could potentially be guilty. But no one will believe her; her family, friends, and co-workers chalk up her suspicions to midlife crisis paranoia. Will she uncover the identity of The Neighbor before it’s too late? Despite a rather predictable pattern—no one seems to understand that Beth’s concern is rooted in more than her chaotic life changes—there are a number of satisfying twists in the second half of the book. To answer the rhetorical question: No, it’s clear that we never really know our neighbors—or our own families—but must rely only on ourselves. A stark takeaway, yes, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
Cleveland engenders deep paranoia for the susceptibility of U.S. intelligence—under the guise of entertainment.Pub Date: July 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-35802-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
A gripping depiction of America at a turning point.
Can a former double agent escape the dark shadow of “the Good War”?
The prolific Downing’s World War II spy thriller series continues with a complex portrait of 1953 America and Germany. British journalist and former double agent John Russell, now living in Los Angeles with his actress wife, Effi Koenen, and teenage daughter, Rosa, is doing research for a potentially controversial book about American corporate ties to Nazi Germany. Effi has landed a role on the hit sitcom Please, Dad, and Rosa plans to attend art school. Meanwhile, Russell’s friend Gerhard Ströhm is in Moscow with other German delegates attending the funeral of Joseph Stalin. The political situation in Europe is arguably even dicier than usual, with the future of the Soviet Union in question and German allegiance unclear. Stateside, the aftermath of the war is on display in racial prejudice and the McCarthy witch hunts. Turmoil disturbs the happy Please, Dad family when cast member Laura Fullagar is investigated for a possible communist past. Closer to home, Russell comes to the slow and unsettling realization that he’s being followed. The trip he and Effi take to Germany thickens the plot further. Downing’s focus is broad, with passing references to the recently ended Korean War, the Rosenbergs, and the burgeoning L.A. smog problem—potent reminders that many events around the world are interrelated. While grounded in deep research, the story is told through the journeys of a handful of fully fleshed-out characters.
A gripping depiction of America at a turning point.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781641293570
Page Count: 408
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
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