JUDAS 62 by Charles Cumming

First published in the UK in 2021; published by Mysterious Press on December 6, 2022

JUDAS 62 continues the story that Charles Cumming began in BOX 88. The book is the second in a series that features Lachlan Kite. It isn’t necessary to read the first to enjoy the second.

Kite is essentially running BOX 88, a clandestine organization that brings together spies from the US and Great Britain, a pairing that isn’t legally sanctioned and that is only known to a few key employees of the CIA and MI6. BOX 88 told the story of Kite’s first assignment. JUDAS 62 tells the story of his second mission. The details of Kite's current predicament are sandwiched around the story of his second attempt to please his spy masters. That mission left some loose ends that, decades later, Kite needs to tie up.

In the present, Kite learns that his name (or rather, the name of the alias he used in BOX 88) is on a Russian hit list (the Judas list). That revelation follows the assassination of a Russian defector who had been given a false identity and a job in Connecticut. Kite resolves to put an end to the assassinations.

The story then pauses as Kite remembers his second assignment for BOX 88. Kite was sent to Russia, where he posed as an English language instructor. Before leaving, he had a tiff with his girlfriend Martha, who got high and canoodled with another guy at a party. Martha eventually resurfaces to complicate Kite’s life.

Kite’s mission in Russia is to exfiltrate Yuri Aranov, a Russian scientist with expertise in biological and chemical weapons. Aranov is willing to defect to the country that offers him the best deal. The British want to make sure that country isn’t Iran or some other nation that might deploy the weapons that Aranov is capable of designing. Aranov has agreed to enroll in the English language class that Kite will teach so he can hear Kite’s pitch.

Kite is confident that one or more of his students works for the FSK and is taking the class to keep an eye on Aranov or Kite or both. Kite nevertheless makes no effort to resist seduction by his most beautiful student, Oksana Sharikova, in part because he’s still miffed at Martha and feels that if he is betraying her, she deserves it for betraying him. Betrayal, of course, if a primary theme in nearly every good spy novel. Oksana was with Aranov before she seduced Kite, but Aranov betrayed her for another woman. Kite worries that Aranov might view Kite’s relationship with Oksana as a betrayal. The reader will worry that Oksana is an FSK honeytrap who will betray Kite.

Illicit border crossings are a classic component of spy fiction. Cummings builds suspense as the reader wonders whether and how Kite and Aranov will make it out of Russia. Cummings tosses in enough complications to make those worries palpable. The story then shifts back to the present, where Kite decides that a Russian defector who is on the Judas list should be moved to Dubai and dangled as bait for Mikhail Gromik, a Russian intelligence officer Kite first encountered in BOX 88. The plot will imperil the double agent England has planted in the FSB (BOX 88’s source of information about the Judas list), creating additional suspense in a story that regularly places sympathetic characters in harm’s way.

An interesting side note in JUDAS 62 involves the difficulty that male spies have keeping it in their pants. Kite nearly messed up his assignment in BOX 88 because his attention was diverted by a hot young woman. Kite does the same thing in first half of JUDAS 62, when he was still a young and relatively new spy. Late in the novel, another spy breaks a woman’s heart because of his opportunistic approach to sex — if the opportunity is there, he seizes it. Cumming suggests that the thrill and danger of being a spy encourages men to seek inappropriate sexual release, but it could just be that they are being guys — guys who have the personalities and looks to succeed both at spying and seduction. In any event, while the sexual adventures of the characters are not presented in graphic detail, they add some spice (and extra drama) to the story. To his credit, Cumming recognizes the harm caused to sincere women who are used for the sexual convenience of men.

Another interesting side note is wrapped up in a speech that Kite gives at the end of the novel as he encourages another spy to remain with the organization. Intelligence agencies exist to collect information, Kite proclaims, but the problem with the world is not the absence of information but the flood of untrustworthy information. In Russia and China, state-controlled media tell residents what to believe. In the US, liars on social media tell Americans what to believe. And sadly, too many people believe the lies. “It’s a question of whether people are smart enough to realise that they’re being manipulated,” Kite says. The other problem is that people in power want to remain in power and will “do everything they can to remain in place.” Spreading misinformation helps them achieve that goal. Kite wants good people to “make it as difficult as possible for corrupt people and those who serve them to remain in power and manipulate the truth.” The point Kite makes is clearly not limited to spies.

I enjoyed BOX 88 and I enjoyed JUDAS 62 even more, in part because we get to see more of Kite as an older, more mature man. The plot in the new book is also more complex, particularly with regard to events in the present. Cumming has a long history of producing capable spy fiction. He’s doing some of his best work in the BOX 88 series.

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The Double Agent by William Christie

Published by Minotaur Books on November 15, 2022

The Double Agent is a spy thriller that begins in Teheran in 1943. Alexsi Smirnov, a Russian intelligence officer who infiltrated the German army, is warning Churchill of a plot to end his life. That story is told in A Single Spy.

Churchill’s bright idea is to reward Alexsi for saving his life by sending him back to Germany as a British agent. Having betrayed the Russians, Smirnov is certain that he won’t last long in Berlin. Alexsi’s attempt to escape from the British embassy and make his way out of Tehran is foiled, leading Alexsi to agree to spy for Britain, but on his own terms.

Alexsi wants to pose as a signals officer, preferably in Paris, an affable location from which he will be well positioned to escape when Germany loses the war. The British like the idea but send him to Italy, where he gamely takes over the signals operation at a German base. In addition to supervising soldiers who search for clandestine radios operated by partisans and spies, Alexsi is in charge of encoding and decoding messages to the local German command. He uses his position to send coded messages to British intelligence, passing on tidbits about German plans and troop positions in Italy.

The SS officer in charge of the base is happy to have someone of Alexsi’s coding skill and organizational talents. The officer decides to use Alexsi to spy on an Italian princess who is helping the partisans and who has the ear of the Pope. While Alexsi has fun in her bed, the new assignment adds another level of risk to his life as a spy. He dodges Russians, suspicious SS officers, angry Italians, and an unpredictable princess as the war in Europe comes to a close.

The Double Agent offers a nice mix of tradecraft and action. Alexsi doesn’t pretend to be James Bond, but he’s good with a knife. In most instances, he manages to avoid violence by outwitting his adversary. He has a moral code that, while flexible, prevents him from helping the SS commit atrocities against innocent Italians as reprisal for a partisan attack upon SS soldiers.

Alexsi doesn’t have much of a personality beyond his desire to stay alive and his refusal to participate in bloodbaths, but that’s all the personality he needs in a novel that is about survival rather than political idealism. Fans of A Single Spy will probably enjoy the sequel. The novels are similar in style. The second novel is sufficiently independent of the first that a reader will not miss much by reading The Double Agent without first reading A Single Spy.

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Alias Emma by Ava Glass

Published by ‎ Bantam on August 2, 2022

Russian assassins have been killing former Russian scientists who were once affiliated with Elena Primolov, a Russian nuclear physicist who was an asset of MI6. Charles Ripley was once Elena’s handler and perhaps her lover. Ripley spirited Elena and her family out of Russia just before the KGB was going to swoop down upon her. Years later, Ripley has a senior position in the Secret Intelligence Service. When he learns that Russians who were once close to Elena are being targeted, Ripley moves Elena to a secure location. Just how secure it might be is open to question. Another Russian lodged in a safe house was just killed, leading Ripley to suspect that a Russian mole is working in the SIS.

Ripley is training a young agent whose code name is Emma Makepeace. He gives her a meaningless assignment to get her out of the way, then tasks her with persuading Elena’s son Michael to stay with his protected mother. Michael is a pediatric oncologist in London and wants nothing to do with cloak-and-dagger shenanigans until he changes his mind after the second time Emma saves his life.

Ed Masterson wants Ripley’s job. Does he undermine Ripley and Emma because he is a double agent or is he merely ambitious? Ripley’s future is unclear by novel’s end, as is the identity of the mole, assuming one exists (and in spy fiction, one always exists).

Most of Emma’s adventure involves an extended chase scene. To get Michael to safety, Emma must tamp down her growing lust for the doctor while navigating their way through London as they are being pursued by Russian assassins. The tour of London’s back alleys and underground waterway (to avoid the city’s network of cameras that the Russians have somehow hijacked) adds atmosphere to a story that is competent but unremarkable.

Emma is a bit of a lightweight as fictional spies go, likeable enough but not memorable. The reader doesn’t spend enough time with other characters to learn anything about them, apart from one-dimensional Michael, who is a stereotype of a perfect man. He loves kids and saves them from cancer. What could be better? How sad for Emma that her duty is to Queen and Country rather than her naughty bits.

While the ending wraps up the story of Russian assassins, it leaves enough questions unanswered to make clear that Alias Emma is the first in a series that will feature Emma’s adventures in espionage. Spy novel fans won’t put Alias Emma on top of their stack of 2022 spy novels, but it is worth reading as an introduction to a series that might gain more depth and intrigue as it progresses.

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Yesterday's Spy by Tom Bradby

Published by Atlantic Monthly Press on August 2, 2022

Yesterday’s Spy is set against the background of the 1953 coup in Iran that displaced Mossadegh and elevated the Shah to power. The coup was planned and assisted by the American and British governments. The British wanted to assure that British oil companies would continue to earn the lion’s share of revenues from Iranian oil. The CIA supported the coup because of its obsession with communism. Neither government considered the long-term consequences of backing the Shah. Western meddling is largely responsible for the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Harry Tower is a British spy. Lacking a British public school pedigree, he knew he would always be regarded as an outsider by the SIS. Fortunately for Harry, Churchill noticed him and had his back. During World War II, Churchill decided to support Tito. With Churchill’s support, Harry and another SIS agent ran anti-communist operations in Yugoslavia, where Harry got to know KGB agent Oleg Vasilyev. One SIS operation involved British troops parachuting into the country. The operation went sideways because Russia learned of the plan before it began. The deaths of the paratroopers sit heavily on Tower’s conscience.

Harry’s son Sean is a journalist. Sean blames Harry for his mother’s suicide. Harry’s wife suffered from bouts of severe depression and, rather than being there when she cycled into a dark phase, Harry was off saving the world. Harry returned from an assignment and found Sean holding his mother’s body after cutting her from the rope she used to hang herself. Harry understandably blames himself but wishes he could do more for Sean, who wants nothing that Harry tries to give him.

Much of that background is developed through flashbacks. The novel begins in the planning stages of the coup. Harry learns that Sean has been kidnapped. He immediately heads to Tehran, where he meets Sean’s girlfriend, Shahnaz Salemi. Harry has had dealings with Shahnaz’s father. Shahnaz bonded with Sean in part because she and Sean both despised their fathers. Father-child relationships are at the heart of the novel.

The plot is typical of a decent spy thriller. Harry spends the novel chasing down leads (most of which suggest that Sean is dead or will be soon) and figuring out why Sean was kidnapped. Was it his reporting about the drug connection between the Iranian police and the French? Did he learn about the planned coup? Or was the kidnapping part of a plan to lure Harry back to Iran, a plan that involves a suspected mole in SIS? Harry connects with various spies (including Vasilyev), cops, criminals, members of the military, arms dealers, information brokers, and various players in Iranian government, gathering conflicting information as a noose seems to be tightening around Harry’s neck.

Yesterday’s Spy delivers the suspense that readers expect from a spy novel. The clock keeps ticking, both because there may be little time to save Sean if he still alive and because the fate of the Iranian government may change at any moment. Harry is involved in fistfights and shootouts, but his actions seem plausible. Harry is well trained but far from the super-heroic tough guy that is such a common thriller protagonist. It isn’t easy to warm up to Harry, in part because the background that shapes his characterization has made Harry insular and self-absorbed. Still, Tom Brady structured the novel to make it possible for the reader to appreciate the story without liking the protagonist.

As is typical of spy novels that incorporate a mole, the reader is asked to guess the mole’s identity. I guessed wrong, so Bradby scored a point for his surprising reveal. The ending is not only surprising, it is redemptive and satisfying.

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Winter Work by Dan Fesperman

Published by Knopf on July 12, 2022

Most of spy fiction’s best novels are set in the Cold War. Winter Work comes at the end of that war. The Berlin Wall has been down for about four months. East Germany is transitioning to unification. The Stasi offices are closed; files that were not burned are being ransacked or sold.

Emil Grimm is a former Stasi officer who is now unemployed. He had a desk job, running the Stasi operation to spy on NATO. He worries that the unified Germany will prosecute him for treason, as if he had some duty to be loyal to West Germany when he was a citizen of East Germany. His more urgent concern is how to pay for his wife’s medical treatment until reunification brings her into (West) Germany’s system of free healthcare. Emil’s wife is dying of a progressive disease and can no longer move.

Emil has a dacha outside Berlin and an apartment in the city, closer to his shuttered headquarters. One of his neighbors, Lothar Fischer, is also a Stasi officer. On his morning walk, Emil discovers Lothar’s body. The Stasi are already there, supposedly investigating, but they are soon chased away by the local police, who feel empowered to do their jobs now that the Stasi are no longer a thing.

Lothar apparently shot himself. Emil knows he was murdered. Emil also knows that Lothar was up to something. Emil knows that because he was up to something with Lothar.

On the novel’s other front, the CIA’s DDO is trying to get in bed with a Russian who wants to sell the identities of all the former Stasi agents. Claire Saylor (a key characters in The Cover Wife) has been contacting former Stasi agents to see if they have information they want to sell. She’s going behind her boss’ back to get off-the-books help from Clark Baucom, a retired CIA agent. The DDO assigns another agent to keep her under control. That agent also has a central role in The Cover Wife, making Winter Work the origin story of their teamwork.

Claire and her partner take an interest in Emil. That interest leads to conflict with the Russian and to escalating tension as the story nears its climax. The action is never over-the-top — this isn’t a tough guy novel — but the risks faced by the novel’s central characters create fear that the reader shares.

Dan Fesperman is a reliable spy novelist. Winter Work is rooted in Cold War history, as Fesperman explains in his acknowledgements. I don’t usually read acknowledgements, but Fesperman’s explanation of CIA and Russian activities soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall adds interest to the story.

Given the horrible reputation of the Stasi, it’s intriguing that Fesperman makes Emil a sympathetic figure. As Claire notes, Emil is “an adversary who has already been defeated.” He doesn’t seem to deserve further punishment, particularly the kind of punishment that will be awaiting him if he’s caught. Emil’s disabled wife encouraged him to form a sexual bond with her caretaker. Emil’s devotion to both of them, the fact that he didn’t actually order anyone’s death as a Stasi agent, and his remorse for being on the wrong side of history make it possible for the reader to hope he survives. In the tradition of strong spy novels, Winter Work illustrates how fuzzy the line between good guys and bad guys can become in the shadowy world of espionage.

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