THE SPY AND THE SNAKE

An assistant case officer at MI5 is suddenly catapulted into a challenging on-the-ground, off-the-books assignment at the height of the Cold War.

There’s only one reason that Maggie Flynn’s limited experience in the field qualifies her to handle the exfiltration of an MI6 agent who defected to Hungary years ago but now wants back in. Fitzroy Carver has insisted that the agent assigned to help him escape from behind the Iron Curtain—and bring back some unspecified intelligence that Her Majesty’s Secret Service urgently needs—must be female, and that’s a qualification that, in 1968, applies to very few agents, whether or not they debuted in Mrs. Spy (2025). So Guy Standing, director-general of MI5, packs Maggie off to Budapest with a sparse budget, a warning that the assignment will put her in direct competition with MI6, and the explicit command that she call on no one in either agency for help. Since defecting, Carver has morphed from a James Bond type to an alcoholic slug who’s suspiciously easy to find. In fact, Maggie’s lack of fieldwork makes her success bonding with restaurant owner Zoltan Fodor and having his brother, Janos, fix up her getaway jalopy feel equally suspicious. When everyone she meets, from dishy electronics buyer Tom Bredon to Fitz’s highly efficient housekeeper, Lida, is both a potential ally and a potential nemesis, she seems to make all the right choices—until it all goes sideways. Even though there are precious few surprises here, Maggie’s chatty first-person narrative amounts to a primer on espionage basics for any readers equally green, and Robotham’s warmth for her Hungarian setting is infectious.

Just imagine an episode in which Mick Herron posted his Slow Horses to Budapest. Cheers!