A Most Wanted Man by John le Carré

Published in the UK and by Scribner in the US in 2008

There is no more observant student of human nature than John le Carré. He explores the spaces between what people say and what they leave unsaid. He examines motivations, which are so often failings: an aging man’s irrational devotion to a young woman; an aging woman’s loyalty to a bond that never existed; bureaucracies at war with each other and bureaucrats at war with their souls. His protagonists are keenly aware of their shortcomings and often think of how their lives could have, or should have, turned out differently. So it is with Tommy Brue.

Brue is a private banker in Hamburg, having inherited and then moved the bank he inherited from his father. Brue also inherited some questionable accounts that his father created to hold wealth smuggled from the collapsing Soviet Union.

A lovely and lively young lawyer for a charitable organization gives Brue an account number that was given to her by Issa, who got it from his father, who got it from Brue’s father. Issa is from Chechnya and has spent time in a Turkish prison. He managed a harrowing journey to Hamburg despite being wanted by law enforcement agencies in several countries.

To determine whether Issa is entitled to funds that Brue would prefer his father had never accepted, Brue must delve into Issa’s identity and history. John le Carré develops not just Issa’s story, but the story of Chechnya — the home of Issa’s mother, who was raped at fifteen by Issa’s Russian father. Issa looks to Brue for protection rather than money, but Brue is not in the protection business. Brue is in the uncomfortable position of addressing moral questions rather than banking questions. If (unlike his father) Brue insists that legal formalities be followed, Issa will likely be deported and then will certainly be tortured, by Turks or Russians or others.

Brue is typical of John le Carré protagonists, particularly in his later work. Brue suspects his wife is cheating on him but doesn’t want to know. He runs from difficulties, preferring avoidance to confrontation. His social behavior is proper but he is incapable of expressing true feelings. He behaves prudently during an uneventful life until the time comes to choose between cautious behavior and meaningful but dangerous action. When he makes the choice, he isn’t entirely sure why. He is energized by a young woman who ignites, if not lust exactly, an opportunity for self-examination.

Issa’s lawyer, Annabel Richter, is also typical of le Carré in that her character is complex and conflicted. She views Issa as “her tutor in unbearable pain and hope.” She has learned from failure — hers as a lawyer, or the legal system’s — that a time would come when she would break all the rules for a client. Issa is that client.

The other key character, apart from Issa, is Gunther Bachman, a German intelligence officer stationed in Hamburg as punishment for his sins. One of his people sees that Sweden has identified Issa as an escaped prisoner from Turkey who gave the slip to Swedish authorities. Bachman works out that Issa may be coming to Hamburg. He then finds himself in a bureaucratic nightmare as British intelligence, the CIA, and his German superiors engage in a turf war.

Issa is far from a terrorist. He wants nothing to do with violence or his father’s wealth, which he regards as ill-gotten and thus in violation of Islamic law. He wants only to pursue a career in medicine. The plot focuses on how the fighters in the war on terror are at war with humanity in their willingness to sacrifice the innocent, all to make doubtful gains in their efforts to thwart terror. Some readers might see the novel as cynical; I viewed it as honest. As always, John le Carré tells a good story and creates characters who stay with the reader long after the last page is turned.

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The Eighth Sister by Robert Dugoni

Published by Thomas & Mercer April 9, 2019

The Eighth Sister starts as a spy novel and turns into a lawyer novel. Two of my favorite genres rolled into a single book. I’m happy to report that the result will appeal to fans of both espionage thrillers and courtroom thrillers.

Seven Russian women, known as the Seven Sisters, were trained as American agents during the Cold War. Now that Putin is in charge, three have been killed. Former CIA agent Charles Jenkins, who runs a security service with cash flow problems, is recruited to travel to Moscow and identify the eighth sister, a Russian operative who is trying to ferret out the identities of the remaining four. Once Jenkins identifies her, someone else will kill her.

Jenkins is recruited by the man who used to be his station chief in Mexico City. For that reason, Jenkins believes that the CIA has authorized his mission. I suspect that most fans of spy fiction will wonder from the start whether that is true, and will wonder why Jenkins doesn’t do more to confirm that he is actually serving his government. But he’s getting paid handsomely, so maybe he doesn’t care.

Jenkins has a 9-year-old son at home and another baby on the way. He is 64 years old, 6’5” and black, so he stands out a bit in Moscow. The plot includes some good chase scenes in Russia when the mission goes south. It also introduces collateral characters who are self-sacrificing, adding a feel-good element to the story that never seems manipulative.

Every good spy novel contains at least one double-cross while challenging the reader to guess whether certain characters are good guys or bad guys. After the double-cross occurs, Jenkins is accused of being a traitor, a charge that never sits well with jurors or hanging judges.

The story offers a realistic view of the lengths to which the federal government will go to poison the public’s mind when it makes arrests, doing everything it can — from perp walks to press releases — to make a suspect guilty in the public mind until proven innocent. And convincing witnesses to tell the government’s version of the truth, even if it isn’t objectively true, is a specialty of federal prosecutors.

Jenkins is defended by David Sloane, a seasoned lawyer who has appeared in other Robert Dugoni novels. The plot depends on the government bringing Jenkins to trial while withholding evidence of his innocence — something no ethical prosecutor would do, but not every federal prosecutor is ethical. In our imperfect world, however, prosecutors (and particularly federal prosecutors) know their odds of being disciplined for ethical lapses are virtually nonexistent. I also found it doubtful that a majority of the Ninth Circuit would go along with a charade that prevents a defendant from presenting compelling evidence of innocence (some other circuits, yes, but the Constitution is still in effect on the West Coast). Still, it is easy to roll with the court’s ruling to keep the story moving.

The courtroom scenes generate the kind of drama that legal thrillers should create. The Eighth Sister effectively bridges the spy and legal genres, telling two very different stories but telling them both well. I don’t recall another novel that combines the genres in quite this way, so bravo to Dugoni for doing something new and clever — and for doing it so ably.

RECOMMENDED

American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson

Published by Random House on February 12, 2019

American Spy is a mixture of domestic drama and spy thriller. Much of its focus is on the difficult childhood and questionable parenting that shaped its protagonist, Marie Mitchell, and on Marie’s problematic relationship with her mother. Surrounding those domestic problems is a plot that follows Marie’s short career with the FBI and as a contractor working against the interests of a politician in Burkina Faso.

The novel begins in Connecticut in 1992. An attempt to kill Marie in her sleep doesn’t end well for the assassin. Two days later, using fake passports, she moves her two sons to Martinique, where her mother was born and is currently living.

After a day, Marie begins writing a journal so that her children, who believe their father died in a war, will one day understand the truth about her mother’s life. Most of the story consists of that journal. Do mothers who write extended explanations to their children include dialog and atmosphere? Maybe literature professors do, but not FBI agents who have been trained to stick to the facts and produce the dullest prose imaginable. I didn’t buy the journal concept, although most of the time it is easy to ignore the fact that the story is not told in a conventional narrative.

Marie’s story starts in New York, when in 1987 she is asked to leave the FBI so that she can work as a temporary contractor for the CIA. But Marie’s backstory dates to her childhood in Queens, where her father was a cop. Her interest in espionage may have been born when her 13-year-old sister confidently announced her intent to become a spy, showing no concern that her race might be a barrier to joining the intelligence community. Helene was always the braver, less timid sister, and it was Helene who encouraged Marie to follow in her footsteps. Some of the novel’s backstory follows Marie’s aborted relationship with Helene during their adulthood, as well as Helene’s romantic relationship with Daniel Slater. That relationship leads to revelations that become a turning point later in the story.

By 1987, the FBI had proven itself to be more lawless than the organizations upon which it spied, including its role in the murder of Fred Hampton while he slept. Marie has little love for her employer and is pleased to be asked to help gather intelligence about Burkina Faso while its president, Thomas Sankara, is in New York. The long-term goal is to influence the country’s elections with a political party America controls — the CIA’s version of “true democracy.” Marie has little interest in American expansionism, and even less in sleeping with Sankara in exchange for an obscene amount of money, but in the belief that she can outwit both her handler and Sankara, she accepts the assignment in order to pursue an agenda of her own.

The main plot follows Marie’s relationship with Sankara as she tries to sort through how she feels about his charismatic condemnation of imperialism and his flirtation with authoritarianism, how she feels about the CIA’s attempt to use her, and how she feels about the revelations mentioned above. The pace is deliberate but the story is so rich in detail that it never becomes dull. The plot holds a nice surprise although not the sort of surprise that has become conventional in spy novels.

The decision to emphasize domestic drama might put off some spy novel fans but it might also appeal to domestic drama fans who typically avoid spy novels. I wouldn’t herald Lauren Wilkinson as the second coming of John le Carré, as have some people who blurbed the book, but Wilkinson’s fresh take on spy novels has some appeal. I appreciated its focus on a country that is rarely in the news and on the way in which private companies meddle in foreign affairs with America's under-the-table blessing, not to promote democracy but to increase private wealth. Apart from the novel’s other merits, I also appreciated Wilkinson’s graceful prose.

RECOMMENDED

The Moroccan Girl by Charles Cumming

Published by St. Martin's Press on February 12, 2019

I always count on Charles Cumming to tell a good story. Like Kit Carradine, the protagonist in The Moroccan Girl, Cumming writes spy novels that occupy a space “between the kiss-kiss-bang-bang of Ludlum and the slow-burn chess game of le Carré.” The Moroccan Girl fits nicely in that niche.

The novel is set against the background of a social protest movement known as Resurrection. Unlike Occupy or Antifa, Resurrection takes direct action against specific individuals who exemplify greed and social injustice, sometimes by kidnapping or killing them. The group’s founders included a Russian named Ivan Simakov and his girlfriend, Lara Bartok, who was born in Hungary. By the time Simakov died in an explosion in Moscow, the movement had thousands of members.

Lara begins the novel by making a statement to the Secret Intelligence Service. Her statement is divided into five parts. Between each part, Cumming reveals the backstory.

By chance (or not), Kit Carradine meets Robert Mantis, who identifies himself as a British spy. Kit has been invited to attend a literary event in Marrakech. Mantis recruits him to pass some money to an asset in Casablanca and to look for a woman in Marrakech who has gone missing. It does not take Kit long to discern the woman’s identity. She is, of course, Lara Bartok.

Kit sees the invitation as the opportunity to follow in his father’s footsteps by doing real work as a spy and hopes that a successful mission might spark a secondary career as a clandestine asset for the SIS. He feels inspired by Maugham, Greene, and Forsyth, all of whom mixed the reality of espionage with their fictional creations. That’s a clever and credible premise, because what spy fiction fan doesn’t imagine being a spy?

Kit enjoys the intrigue of Casablanca until a series of encounters with people who might also be spies convince him that his amateurism has screwed up his mission. Kit’s ego and his desire for future assignments then overcome his good judgment. He decides to prove his value by ignoring instructions and continuing to search for Lara. Along the way, Kit meets a number of shady characters, any or all of whom might be spies working for America or Great Britain or Russia.

In the tradition of spy novels, the reader is asked to question whether each character is who or what the character purports to be. Some of the answers are surprising, as they should be in a spy novel, but the story is sufficiently plausible to be convincing.

I enjoyed the ideological clashes between people who have competing viewpoints: those who want to save the world from oppressors and those who believe that most people want to join the oppressors at the seat of power; those who view violence as a revolutionary tool and those who reject violence regardless of the ideology that provokes its use. I also appreciated the timeliness of The Moroccan Girl, although to avoid spoilers, I will leave it to the reader to discover the way in which Cumming has crafted a story that parallels current events.

Cumming builds suspense nicely and caps the plot with an action scene as the suspense reaches its climax. The pace is appropriate to a novel that falls between kiss-kiss-bang-bang and slow-burn chess game. The story is never dull but it takes time to establish interest in the characters and to create the kind of atmosphere that makes events in Casablanca and Marrakech seem real. In its plot, characterization, and atmosphere, The Moroccan Girl stands among Cumming’s best spy novels.

RECOMMENDED

The Red House by Derek Lambert

First published in Great Britain in 1972; published by HarperCollins Crime Club on November 2, 2017

The Red House is a novel of cold war intrigue, published at a time when the cold war was still raging. It isn’t a traditional spy novel, although the KGB and CIA play important roles in the story. Rather, The Red House is the story of a Russian’s disillusionment with the Soviet system and a young American’s disillusionment with a government (and father) who want him to put patriotism ahead of love.

Diplomat Vladimir Zhukov arrives in United States in 1968, newly appointed as the Soviet Union’s second secretary. Two KGB minders are determined to keep Zhukov from enjoying the decadent American pleasures that might tempt him to defect. The Soviet ambassador, on the other hand, is a bit more trusting — but not so trusting that he forgets how the game is played.

Zhukov is asked to spy on anyone of interest, while the Americans ask a Brit named Massingham to cozy up to Zhukov. Massingham’s bored wife wants to cozy up to Zhukov for reasons of her own. Her taste for seduction has served Massingham well in the past.

Meanwhile, Zhukov’s daughter Natasha is trying to adjust to her time in decadent D.C., including the unexpected attention of the dashing Charlie Hardin, who is doing a favor for his father, an FBI agent. Natasha appreciates the freedom the US offers, despite her reservations about American politics and poverty. Feelings traditionally get in the way of duty in spy novels that feature a spy who becomes sexually involved with a target, and that theme eventually animates the novel’s plot.

The novel reflects the hawk/dove division of 1968, the fear that southeast Asian governments will fall to communism like dominos in the absence of an American presence in Vietnam versus rejection of such a dubious theory as justification for so many pointless American deaths. The hawk/dove division is also represented by the justifiable concern that the Soviet Union would use military force to suppress dissenters in Czechoslovakia. Those issues contribute to the respective moral dilemmas that Charlie and Zhukov experience as the novel gains steam.

The Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, in fact, gives Zhukov reason to question his patriotism as he watches tanks roll into Prague on televisions in various New York bars, seeing hope in the faces of young men standing up for change. The novel makes the point that in a city like New York, a city built by the labor of immigrants, a Russian can sit in a certain kind of bar with Germans and Americans and Australians and enjoy the alcohol-fueled fellowship of humanity, a fellowship that is unimpaired by the political differences of their nations’ rulers. In a different kind of bar, however, political philosophies mix less easily, as Zhukov discovers in one of the plot’s turning points.

The Red House is about nationalism and loyalty, political conflict and conflicts of the heart. The novel moves at a deliberate pace — too deliberate in the first half, as the story meanders while establishing the characters in an abundance of detail. Yet tension begins to mount in the last third of the novel as Zhukov finds himself cornered both by his reaction to world events and by a moment of poor judgment. Derek Lambert avoids tugging at the reader’s heartstrings, but there is both sadness and satisfaction in an ending that allows the power of love and the ugliness of politics to coexist.

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