A Colder War

June 16, 2014
Cumming’s intricate sequel to 2012’s A Foreign Country finds British operative Thomas Kell, who’s been indefinitely suspended from the SIS, reevaluating his life between pints of pale ale at a London pub. But when the call comes from “C”— SIS’s first female chief, Amelia Levene—Kell is back in the game, tasked with unraveling the mystery surrounding the suspicious death of Paul Wallinger, an SIS agent stationed in Turkey who happened to be C’s former lover. The death, coupled with the murders of a growing number of “assets” throughout the region and the failure of numerous joint operations between SIS and the CIA, point to a mole inside western intelligence whose existence threatens every SIS operation—and operative—in the Middle East. It’s hard not to root for a character like Kell—deeply cynical but still very much an idealist—and the bombshell plot twists toward the novel’s conclusion will have spy fiction aficionados eagerly awaiting the next installment. Agent: Luke Janklow, Janklow & Nesbit.

July 1, 2014
An intriguing novel of espionage and deceit set primarily in current-day Turkey."Spying is waiting," observes one of two spies waiting for the Iranian exfiltration code-named HITCHCOCK. Their wait ends when they witness a Mercedes explode with the Iranian inside. Soon, the spy named Paul Wallinger is killed when his Cessna crashes. Evidence suggests he committed suicide, but could it have been murder? In London, disgraced SIS agent Tom Kell comes in from the cold to try to learn the truth about the mysterious deaths. Do the Brits have a mole in their midst? Do the Americans at Langley care a whit about the life of a British agent? Kell ponders these questions over many cigarettes-lots of smoking goes on in this story. Wallinger's daughter, Rachel, also wants to know the truth about the "accident," and she places herself in harm's way to find out. The Russians, the Americans, the Iranians and the Brits all have a stake in this "game between spies" drama. Everything to Kell becomes "a clue, a tell, a signal-or a blind alley." The plotting is solid if unexceptional-the twists and turns are unlikely to shock-and the characters are developed just deeply enough to do the job. On the other hand, the details are nicely done; for example the vivid descriptions of the Bosporus: "Kell went outside into the humid afternoon...smoking a cigarette as a rainbow arced across his shoulder towards the distant minarets of Aya Sofia." Obviously this is Cold War fare, but what the "colder war" of the title is colder than is unclear. Colder than the McCarthy era? Colder than the Cuban missile crisis? Nah.Not a bad story, but it probably won't leave readers breathless. Spy-vs.-spy fans might give it a try.

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March 15, 2014
Here's another in "New York Times" best-selling Cumming's edgily elegant works, perfect for those wanting a contemporary spy thriller in the vein of le Carre and even for those who don't. In the second Thomas Kell book, three recent recruits by Western intelligence--a military official and a nuclear scientist from Iran, plus a journalist critical of Turkey's government--all meet unfortunate fates. Then MI6's veteran agent in Turkey perishes in a mysterious plane crash, and disgraced agent Tom Kell is pulled back in the fold to dig out the mole evidently buried somewhere.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2014
Over several novels, Cumming has established himself, along with Olen Steinhauer, as one of the best of today's old-school espionage novelists. His latest, a follow-up to A Foreign Country (2012), finds disgraced agent Tom Kell still out in the cold after being scapegoated in the wake of a torture scandal. That changes quickly when his former colleague, Amanda Levene, now head of MI6, drafts Kell to find out whether the airplane crash that killed her lover, Paul Wallinger, head of station in Turkey, was an accident or the work of a suspected mole. Or molesWallinger himself may have been a traitor driven to suicide. We're in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy territory here, of course, but there are also hints of later le Carr', as Kell falls in love with Rachel Wallinger, Paul's daughter, and quickly finds himself in that treacherous demilitarized zone between the personal and the political. Cumming is a master at describing the details of spy tradecraft, from electronic wizardry to tailing a suspect on the street, and one of the great pleasures of this novel is watching Kell and his team do their work. But is the price of doing that workand living the clandestine life it requirestoo high? Are ideals as deadly as bombs? Those are the fundamental questions of the spy novel, and Cumming asks them with great eloquence, revealing a contemporary twist or two in the way his characters frame their uncertain answers, but coming round in the end to the abiding melancholy that still shrouds all but the most heartless of spies. Superb espionage fiction in the grand tradition.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2014

Cumming's second Tom Kell thriller (after A Foreign Country) is a complicated puzzle of a book, in which colleagues might be enemies and lovers may be spies. Kell is called back into action by MI6 chief Amelia Levene to investigate a plane crash that killed MI6's station head for Turkey. Wishing to redeem himself after he was made the fall guy for a mission gone wrong in Afghanistan, Kell is a complicated and all-too-human spy. He is sometimes resentful of his status as a disgraced agent, often distracted by his personal life, and liable to drink a little too much. The globe-trotting action takes us to London, Greece, Turkey, Croatia, and Ukraine, as Kell and his team follow bad hunches, good leads, and wily spies to unravel the mystery of the station head's death and reveal the identity of the mole who sabotaged a number of covert operations. VERDICT This fast-paced thriller is full of twists, turns, and surprises. With well-developed, complex characters and plenty of details about spycraft, it's a perfect summer read for fans of Stella Rimington and John le Carre. [See Prepub Alert, 2/24/14.]--Terry Lucas, Rogers Memorial Lib., Southampton, NY

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2015

In present-day Turkey, disgraced agent Tom Kell is brought back into the fold when the female head of British Intelligence recruits him to find a mole suspected of engineering a plane crash that killed her lover. Cumming is considered one of the foremost spy novelists writing today, and this book shows why. (LJ 7/1/14)

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.