JADE TIGER - Book review

Craig Thomas’s espionage thriller Jade Tiger was published in 1982 and subsequently reprinted at least thirteen times; my edition is dated 2000. (I’m gradually catching up on my backlog of ‘to-be-read’ books!) He was a very popular author in the 1980s and 1990s.

His debut novel Rat Trap was successful, but it pales by comparison with this outing. By this book, Thomas has improved in style and in conveying tension and suspense and characterisation.

The story begins with a Chinese officer from the Ministry of Public Tranquillity plotting operation Jade Tiger with an unnamed American.

Then a Chinese officer, Colonel Wei, ‘walks in’ to British Intelligence in Hong Kong. British SIS veteran Kenneth Aubrey is tasked with interrogating the man, for the Colonel apparently possesses potentially destabilising information about a high-placed German politician, Zimmerman. In 1940, when he was a wet-behind-the-ears spy Aubrey knew Zimmerman. He’d captured him but it was during the BEF retreat to Dunkirk. There developed a grudging companionship as they evaded strafing Messerschmitts and bombs. The war-time flashbacks are very effective.

Apparently, during a cultural visit to China Zimmerman was drugged while visiting Wuhan and then interrogated by the Chinese, who learned of his allegiance to the KGB and the USSR. (Wuhan is not sinister in this tale, however!)

Aubrey is ageing now; he has featured in 10 or 11 books; he appeared in three or four before this one. He is accompanied by Australian Patrick Hyde as his bodyguard. In Hong Kong they meet up with the CIA representative Buckholtz who is keen to take Wei off their hands.

Aubrey is the old school. He owes his life to Zimmerman so he needs to confirm that Wei is telling the truth about Zimmerman being a mole for the Soviets. At risk is the Berlin Treaty, the reunification of Germany, the pulling down of the Berlin Wall (in 1982).

The investigation also involves a Chinese-American CIA agent, Liu, who is inserted into Shanghai to verify Wei’s revelations. These are the days before China had embraced the ubiquitous facial recognition cameras. Liu’s attempts to obtain proof and avoid detection are well told and suitably tense and realistic.

Aubrey and Hyde follow a trail to Australia where an old associate of Zimmerman still lives. Again, the details and descriptions are first rate.

Throughout, Aubrey, Hyde and Buckholtz are shadowed and even on occasion attacked by Hyde’s nemesis, the Soviet Petrunin. Hyde and Petrunin have had previous encounters; the fact that I haven’t read these did not spoil my enjoyment of the book.

Like The Day of the Jackal, we’re aware that there’s a failure at the heart of the story; for we know that the Treaty must fail since the fall of the Wall did not occur until 1989. But that doesn’t matter; we want to know what happens to the individuals concerned, which is a measure of a good writer.

Sadly, in 2011 Craig Thomas died of pneumonia, aged 68, having also suffered from leukaemia.

Book review - The Spycatcher

The Spycatcher (2011) is a debut espionage novel by Matthew Dunn, who just happens to have been trained by British SIS, as well as working with units of the SAS, SBS, and MI5, GCHQ and CIA operatives. The credentials are backed up by prose that reeks of insider knowledge.

The book was originally published with the title Spartan in hardback and then retitled for the paperback. The hero, Will Cochrane, is known by the code name Spartan. The British Spartan Programme allows only one man to go through the process, and he will be answerable only to the Prime Minister and his controller, Alistair: Spartan is trained to be a lethal weapon.

It begins with high tension, in New York’s Central Park, where an assignation turns into an assassination. Cochrane is badly wounded but survives (he would, wouldn’t he?) Part of the mystery that is his life unfolds as he is introduced to a secretive American who just happens to know Cochrane’s controller. The debacle in Central Park involved several agents from Iran. Alistair has learned that the Iranians are planning a massive atrocity in either the UK or the USA. Cochrane’s task is to identify the mastermind, capture him and get him to reveal the intended target. Nothing to it, really. Except, as Alistair says, ‘There is nothing regular about this mission.’ Cochrane is sent to meet a MI6 contact in Sarajevo, who knows somebody who might have a lead on the so-called mastermind.

No sooner does he get there than it all goes wrong.

But Cochrane has one lead – Lana, a woman living in Paris, who might have known the ‘mastermind’ during the Bosnian conflict. She was a journalist at the time, and came away scarred both physically and mentally. Reluctantly, he enlists her aid in locating her ex-lover, a man she now hates.

He is aided by a team of four specialists recruited specially for this mission. They’re tough and soon prove their loyalty to Cochrane. The trail will lead from the freezing streets of Sarajevo to the snow-clad mountain region of New York State and the city itself for the violent denouement.

Throughout, we follow the spy’s tradecraft, trailing suspects, killing shadowy agents. These passages are well written, sucking you into the suspenseful story, all the time casting doubt on the ability of innocents to survive. The insider knowledge is evident but never obtrusive. We believe in the apparent invincibility of Spartan. But he makes mistakes; inevitably. Dunn has created a hero readers will willingly follow in subsequent books. Cochrane is flawed, troubled by his past, aching to give it all up and lead a ‘normal’ life, and yet he is a driven soul, wanting to right wrongs, needing to punish those who do evil things. He is not averse to being judge, jury and executioner.

The narrative compels the reader to keep turning the pages. That is what every thriller should do; many don’t manage it.

Dunn has now produced seven books in the Spycatcher series. Be aware that he has also published two novellas and check the review comments of these.

Editorial comment.

Despite the page-turning ability of the writer, there are certain aspects that should have been addressed by his editors.  Almost on every page, somebody’s eyes ‘narrowed’; it became tedious. As for Cochrane’s training, stoic in adversity, it seemed out of character for him to kick the ground (or something else), or stamp his feet ‘in frustration’ so often.

The twist was not a surprise and, in a similar vein to Dan Brown, the explanations seemed contrived. Yet, and yet, the sheer verve of the narrative and the strength of the character Spartan carry you through these minor misgivings. That’s not great literature, but it is good story-telling.

As for the book title change, that seems significant and worthy of note by budding authors. Spartan was fine, since this was the main character’s codename. However, it smacked of a historical novel, not a contemporary espionage thriller. So, I can understand the change. It became The Spycatcher with the strapline ‘It takes a spy to catch a spy’.  However, subsequently it soon became simply Spycatcher and then the next books were referred to as Spycatcher novels. And if you examine some of the titles, some have been subtitled ‘A Will Cochrane novel’.  Received wisdom is to create a brand. And yet there’s a lack of consistency here; if Harper Collins (and its imprints) can’t manage that, what chance have lesser mortals, I wonder…. 

Book review - Red Sparrow

The Cold War isn’t dead and buried, it’s still with us, very much so, if Jason Matthews’ debut thriller Red Sparrow (2013) is to be believed. And since Matthews is a retired Operations Executive of the CIA, the tradecraft and information letter-drops suggest authenticity. Mr Putin may even have avidly read a translation, particularly as he figures in the story. As an ops officer observed, Putin’s intent on putting together USSR Mk 2, and he will do it by any means possible, probably creating instability in the West and Europe in particular. There’s a deep psychological need to create a new, feared Russian Empire.

We first meet CIA agent Nate Nash in Moscow, clandestinely meeting with his asset, code-named MARBLE. The Russians are aware that a mole exists, but have no clue - so far. The meeting seems to go as normal, then mere chance thrusts them both into danger. The manhunt is on – and Nash is identified by the Russians as a foreign agent. The fact that he evaded the hunters is good news, but the bad news is that his asset, a major general in the SVR, the successor to the KGB’s First Chief Directorate, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, is at risk if Nash arranges to handle him further.

At about the same time, Dominika is a new member of the SVR, her recruitment engineered by her uncle, Vanya Egorov. Her career leads her to the Sparrow school, where she learns the techniques of seduction, then suborning targets by blackmail. Dominika’s background is veined with tragedy, her parents’ and her aspirations smothered by the system. Strangely, she is able to view coloured auras around people’s heads, signifying their moods, but keeps this arcane knowledge to herself. It comes in handy when dealing with conspirators, and even her uncle. Considering the controversial lineage of the Kirlian imagery of the 1960s-1970s, this is not too far-fetched, perhaps, noting that my spy heroine happens to be psychic!

Certainly, Dominika is depicted as a strong, sympathetic and convincing character.

Nash is redirected to Helsinki. His boss is Forsyth, a no-nonsense kind of guy, aided by Gable, a quick-talking, apparently glib yet cunning agent, very much in the mould of Tom Arnold’s character Albert Gibson in True Lies, providing light relief.

Before long, Dominika is tasked with going to Finland to ferret out any clues to the mole suspected to exist in the SVR. A fascinating cat-and-mouse affair begins between the attractive pair, each planning to recruit the other.

Disaster strikes and almost at the point where Nate and Dominika become lovers, they are brutally parted.

Dwelling in the shadows is Sergey Matorin, a ‘mechanic’, an executioner of the Russian secret service. This is a dark, unpleasant creation, his deadly cruelty given release in Afghanistan.

Matthews has imbued the story with authentic settings and knowledge about the Russian system and psyche. There are tense, suspenseful moments, and a few brutal interludes, and throughout there’s the constant stench of betrayal hovering. Even though it has 546 pages, it’s a fast read, because you become involved with the characters and want to know how their stories are resolved.

If you like espionage books, then Red Sparrow should greatly satisfy.

Soon, I expect to be reading the sequel Palace of Treason.

Footnote: I cannot fathom why he has inserted recipes at the end of each chapter, admittedly relevant to the food eaten in that chapter. I got to the point where I stopped reading them as they affected the narrative flow!

Writing on the wall

The Tehran Text takes place in 1978. It’s the second published account from the recently declassified secret files that relate to psychic spy Tana Standish. The first account was released as The Prague Papers.

Iran, 1978

Like many human ills, the seeds for Iran’s problems were sown a long time in the past. In this case, by Reza Khan Pahlevi, the general who made himself shah in 1925. His seed and son, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, lacked his father’s forcefulness and ability.

The father had instituted reforms opposed by the clergy, the ulama, but he failed to bring them under control; he attacked them and dominated them but never crushed them.

And the son fared even worse, since he failed even to dominate the ulama, thus earning their undying enmity, especially when he changed their ancient calendar three years before these events took place.

In 1951 the Iranian Nationalist Party, led by Muhammad Mussadegh, rose to power and soon marginalised the young shah, Mohammed, who had ruled under British auspices since 1941, when Tana Standish was four and living in Warsaw – indeed when all her family were still alive.

Tana’s adoptive mother, Vera, had given her plenty of history books to read – in several languages, so she didn’t just get the Anglo-centric version.

Vera Standish told me – a few days after her eighty-first birthday – that she believed history had lessons to teach, not least, to avoid the pitfalls of the past – “…though few British politicians seem willing to learn,” she argued over tea, “otherwise the Suez crisis wouldn’t have happened five years after Mussadegh took power.”

For decades, the British interests had been extensive in Iran, both to curb Russian expansion into the Gulf and the Indian Ocean and to protect the oil supplies, which happened to be managed by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.  Founded after the turn of the century, the English company was given a sixty-year monopoly. At the outset of the First World War, the British government purchased a big share of the company as it had a contract to supply the Royal Navy.

Mussadegh expropriated the oil company and in response to the lack of any compensation, we blockaded Iranian oil supplies. America approached Iran, suggesting it wasn’t really on the side of the old imperial powers, Britain and France, and at the same time our government naively asked America for support to regain their monopoly, suggesting Mussadegh was pro-Soviet.

 
Then in 1953 there were reports of a Soviet-Iranian loan and alliance, so a clandestine US-British operation was set up – and OSS veteran Kermit Roosevelt, a charming and resourceful man from the CIA, was given the responsibility for Operation Ajax. MI6 chose the rather more mundane but quite appropriate name for the plan – Operation Boot. A coup d’état was financed and organised, based on the CIA and MI6 intelligence assessments to the effect that there were powerful sections of popular opinion backed up by the army which favoured booting out Mussadegh. The CIA operatives worked from the bunker underneath the US embassy.
 
Incited by CIA dollars, mobs ran riot through Tehran, trampling several hundred people to death; anyone liable to oppose the prime minister’s removal was disposed of quietly.

So Mussadegh fell and his replacement – a Nazi sympathiser who’d been interned in Palestine by the British, no less – nationalised the company, the National Iranian Oil Company, forty per cent each going to the British and the US oil companies. In effect, the Shah was restored by the army – aided by the CIA.

Those were great days for the CIA, the kingmakers.

 
The MI6 contribution was conveniently forgotten; ‘C’, the head of the British SIS was happy to keep it that way.
 
In the years that followed, the Americans fostered good relations with the Shah and sold him weapons for oil, while the British government did the same, though with more restraint. After all, they guaranteed his future.
 
But those who had eyes to see could see the writing on the wall, and it wasn’t the words of Omar Khayyam.

* * *

 

The Tehran Text is published as an e-book by Crooked Cat Publishing on Tuesday, 17 February.

Order it from Amazon UK here

or from Amazon COM here

More details about Tana Standish can be gleaned from my blog here

http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com.es/2014/11/secret-file-01-tana-standish-psychic-spy.html

Considerable detail about her traumatic childhood is revealed in The Prague Papers, too.

 

 

Amazon UK

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Prague-Papers-Tana-Standish-ebook/dp/B00Q3GHEKE/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1423743855&sr=1-1

 

Amazon COM

http://www.amazon.com/Prague-Papers-Tana-Standish-ebook/dp/B00Q3GHEKE/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1423743885&sr=1-3&keywords=nik+Morton

 

and also available from other online outlets

 

Writing Research – Book review - The Last Assassin

This was Daniel Easterman’s debut novel (1984) and it’s impressive as well as being chillingly prophetic. Set in the period 1977-1980, it covers the fall of the Shah of Iran and the Islamic Revolution’s take-over of the country. Easterman (a penname) is an expert on Iran and Islam, so I was curious about this book, since I’d written a novel set in Iran in 1978 (The Tehran Text, due from Crooked Cat early 2015); naturally, I wanted to be sure my efforts were not in error or contradictory. Having read the book, there may be errors in mine of which I’m unaware, but happily none seem glaring, and I seemed to have captured the fraught period leading up to the Shah being deposed. And, into the bargain, I’d read an enjoyable book too!

 

CIA field agent Peter Randall works with the Shah’s hated secret police, SAVAK, and witnessed torture and worse. The Shah was pro-West and his organs of repression ruthlessly crushed dissent; this anti-Communist stance suited the West, though it was uncomfortable for Randall. Following a SAVAK raid on a secret Islamic cell, Randall discovers some mysterious papers. Before he can get them deciphered, deaths occur close to him and he finds himself on the run.

The style is mostly ‘tell’ and the point of view is omniscient, much like Frederick Forsyth, but neither detracts from the page-turning ability of Easterman’s tale. It is all too believable; here might be the seeds of the Islamic fundamentalist obsession to destroy everything Western. Rational and logical thinking have no place for jihadists; compassion is weakness; love is reserved only for their god. Easterman gets into the mind-set of radical believers and their evil controllers. 

Maybe this book is thirty years old, but it still resonates today, considering the rising threat of the so-called Islamic State.  

***

 

The Tehran Text is the sequel to The Prague Papers, an e-book that is now available!

 

 

Czechoslovakia, 1975.
Tana is a spy - and she’s psychic. Orphaned in the Warsaw ghetto during the Second World War, she was adopted by a naval officer and his wife. Now she works for the British Secret Intelligence Service. Czechoslovakia’s people are still kicking against the Soviet invasion. Tana is called in to restore morale and repair the underground network. But there’s a traitor at work.
And she learns about a secret Soviet complex in the Sumava Mountains. Unknown to her there’s a top secret establishment in Kazakhstan, where Yakunin, one of their gifted psychics, has detected her presence in Czechoslovakia.
When Tana infiltrates the Sumava complex, she’s captured! A desperate mission is mounted to either get her out or to silence her - before she breaks under interrogation.
The Tana Standish series: 1 - The Prague Papers

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Prague-Papers-Tana-Standish-ebook/dp/B00Q3GHEKE/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419408350&sr=1-1&keywords=nik+morton

http://www.amazon.com/Prague-Papers-Tana-Standish-ebook/dp/B00Q3GHEKE/ref=sr_1_6?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1419373126&sr=1-6&keywords=nik+morton

 

 

 

Book review - Ice Cold

Continuing the espionage theme, Ice Cold is a new anthology of fresh short stories written by twenty members of the organisation Mystery Writers of America. It may even be considered timely to have written tales of intrigue around the Cold War; the prospect of a new version of that clandestine conflict seems imminent. As you’d anticipate, these stories deal with psychological warfare, the paranoia of the times, sleeper agents, sabotage, honey traps, and the usual paraphernalia and venues familiar to readers of espionage thrillers over the last fifty-odd years. (More or less what my Tana Standish series is attempting to do, beginning with The Prague Papers; end of plug - and plug at end).

Jeffery Deaver (co-editor) starts the ball rolling with ‘Comrade 35’, a neat exposé about the Kennedy assassination; it’s in his inimitable style, well researched, believable and with a neat twist, as you’d expect.

None of the stories are duds, though for me some resonate more than others. The writing team of Lynds and Sheldon heartbreakingly evoke a grim image of East Germany under the brutal heel of the dreaded Stasi in ‘A Card for Mother’. Sara Paretsky’s ‘Miss Bianca’ is a little girl’s perspective on research into germ warfare, cleverly told.

In ‘Crush Depth’ Brendan Dubois brings a fresh insight into the loss of the Thresher submarine, while T. Jefferson Parker exposes in ‘Side Effects’ the dangers of mind-altering drugs that were often used to subborn individuals.

Other authors included are: Gary Alexander, Raymond Benson (co-editor), Alan Cook, Vicki Doudera, Joseph Finder, JA Jance, John Lescroart, Katia Lief, Laura Lippman, Robert Mangeot, Katherine Neville, Jonathan Stone, Gigi Vernon, Bev Vincent and Joseph Wallace.

The uprising in Hungary is dealt with, and its repercussions, as is the fall-out of the Vietnam War. Religion, patriotism and romance are all affected by the looming shadow of the Cold War and brilliantly conveyed within the pages of this selection.

If you’re interested in good short story writing, this is worth reading. If you’re into Cold War fiction, you won’t be disappointed, though I think they could have found a better book title and cover design.
 

Please purchase from

Amazon UK here

Amazon COM here

  

FFB - The Devil's Trinity

This is a week where we seem to be looking at spy books and characters. So I might as well continue the trend with this, Michael Parker’s fifth book, The Devil’s Trinity published in 2008. Here, Parker is definitely flexing his writing muscles. His story is mainly set in the Caribbean and CIA headquarters and posits a nightmare scenario of which even the popular Clive Cussler would be proud.

Yet it starts innocently enough with an accident at sea. Marsh and Greg, his business partner, are onboard their yacht the Ocean Quest when a ship runs them down. Greg dies, leaving a widow Helen back at their office. These early chapters are tense and create a mystery you want to resolve by reading on.

Then we meet CIA operator Remo who is investigating the arrival on a beach of an anonymous individual suffering from radiation sickness. Alarm bells start to ring, especially when it is revealed that three nuclear bombs - a trinity of death and destruction - have gone missing from Uzbekistan.

Respectable business magnate Hakeem Khan is behind this latest attempt at bringing the ‘Great Satan’ America to its knees. Onboard a vessel sailing the Caribbean, he finds that his plans have been forestalled by the disappearance or death of the pilot of their submersible, the Challenger, which was key to the mission’s success.

Thus the stage is set for these disparate lives to become intertwined in a race against time. The story involves kidnap, violence and bravery. Marsh is coerced into working for Khan, knowing that Helen’s life is forfeit if he refuses. But he fears that he is expendable too.

Considerable knowledge about underwater exploration and airborne firepower are fairly seamlessly woven into the tale of cat-and-mouse between the cunning Khan and the might of the US.

The fast-paced storyline has the potential to make a good movie. Without a doubt, all fans of techno-thrillers should get their money’s worth with this one.

 

Parker’s ninth book is due out soon.

Michael Parker was born in 1941 and educated in London and Portsmouth. He left school with no qualifications but a natural ‘bent’ for English, and it was this ability that set him on the path to writing. Michael has written for as long as he can remember, but not with the success he first coveted. His first novel, NORTH SLOPE was published by Macmillan in 1980. His next manuscript, HELL’S GATE was rejected and so began a saga that lasted twenty six years…. Michael’s second novel, THE SHADOW OF THE WOLF, was published in 1984 by Robert Hale of London. It was to be many, many years of writing and rejections before he saw his third novel published in 2007. This was HELL’S GATE, the novel he had been trying to get accepted since 1980. Other books followed from Robert Hale: THE EAGLE’S COVENANT in 2007, THE DEVIL’S TRINITY in 2008, THE THIRD SECRET in 2009, A COVERT WAR, in 2010, THE BOY FROM BERLIN in 2011. This latter novel is also published in paperback by Harlequin in North America and Canada. Harlequin have also taken up the English language paperback rights for THE EAGLE’S COVENANT, also for North America and Canada.

Michael met his wife Pat when he was sixteen and she was fifteen. They married in 1960, have four sons, ten grandchildren and a new great grandson, Harrison. They celebrated their Golden wedding anniversary in January 2010. Michael has worked as an office boy, a Merchant seaman, a plaster’s labourer, a deck hand, a cinema projectionist, an RAF Technician and a maintenance technician in the food industry. He has also worked in the Middle East. In 1997 Michael and Pat moved to Spain and settled on the Costa Blanca. Michael’s hobbies are football, snooker, and keyboard. He was a member of Torrevieja Christian Fellowship (TCF) along with his wife, and used to play keyboard there as a member of the Praise and Worship team. Michael has described his writing hobby as a ‘Sweet curse’. He says that the joy comes from writing a full length novel, living with it, creating the adventure, the characters, the excitement etc., but the curse comes from the number of rejections that are received from almost all the publishers and agents he contacts. But perseverance is the key word, which was the case with HELL’S GATE; twenty six years in trying. Late this year, they permanently returned to the UK.

He has just picked up two unexpected glowing book reviews, also - from his FB page:

Time to blow my trumpet. My novel, The Eagle's Covenant, has remained unsold for over a year. Then suddenly; two sales and two five star reviews. Unsolicited. I have to quote at least part of one review.
Parker's manner in driving this relentless story resembles the speed of bullets flying out of an Uzi and he paces this novel so well that leaving it for a moment feels uncomfortable - the true sign of a gifted author. In a time when so many books and films rely on fantasy and... special effects to terrify audiences, it is a pleasure to encounter a writer from whose pen flows a story that simply with words on a page can shoulder the same degree of tension based not on aliens or Marvel comic book characters, but solely of the extremes of very human personalities. This is an author who will thrive with American audiences. Watch for film offers....Grady Harp, November 14.

Oh. alright then, here's the other one:
The characters are gripping and sympathetic—especially Joanna in her torment over her missing child. Parker has a gift of prose. He executes description beautifully, creating incredibly detailed images.The clever, complex plot unfolds at a smooth and steady pace, pulling the reader deeper and deeper in that world with every chapter. This was my first novel by Michael Parker, but it definitely will not be the last. Highly recommended for fans of intelligent international thrillers.