Main protagonist is English thriller writer Kit Carradine. By accident (or is it?) he gets contacted by mysterious man claiming to be from Her Majesty's Secret Service. He wants Kit to perform one-off task while on book tour in Morocco. Of course Kit accepts. I mean, he writes about the spies and is now given opportunity to do some spy work - what can go wrong?

Put into it as an ingredient a fact that beautiful lady in distress is involved and you have everything to start the romantic down the road to fight monsters, right?

Story is told from multiple perspectives - in one we follow Kit in his adventure and dealings with shady characters of the spy world; in second we follow Lara Bartok (lady in distress) giving report back to her commanding officer in HM Secret Service - it is interesting how her view of events not necessarily match what we see/hear from Kit's perspective; in third we are given grim details about the actions of rebellious popular group called Resurrection - people organized at first to just harass various extreme-right representatives (radio anchorman, TV show personalities and in general what today is called influencers - in majority of cases what you might call charlatans and demagogues) but that very soon turned to killing on a very large scale (their actions culminate with the siege and hostage taking in Warsaw). Now if you ask me these folks are nothing more than good old anarchists - rather naive approach that their initial actions (kidnappings and physical attacks) wont escalate into outright political violence is really ... stupid. Slowly all of these story lines start to cross and finally we get to the finale. No, won't write about the finale :) but gotta say it ends up as a cliche (if you read any of the spy books in your life).

One of the reviewers commented out that in almost every modern novel Russians are back as main antagonists and it gets rather boring the way world is portrayed - good/white (West) and bad/black (Russia). I guess it is just reflection of new polarization in the world but I find that need to constantly praise the forces on the side of the angels (whomever these angels are) is little bit dated and I expected more. That is one thing in which Le Carre (with all his official conservative views of the world) succeeds better than the rest - in his book after reading about all parties involved you just have an urge to wash your hands because you feel dirty.

And when it comes to anarchists - they were against every political system (hence the word) so as expected this Resurrection movement started life of its own when left without control. Raising hell for the sake of it in highly militarized civil police and under multitude of cameras and controlling systems seems a little bit - naive, right?

That aside book is really well written. As Kit explains about his own novels this one is in middle of Le Carre slow-moving stories and Ludlum's action adventures. Story does stall during the romantic parts with Kit and Lara but I take that as my subjective experience (all the romantic endeavors and lovers hesitation are not my cup of tea :)). While reading it I could not stop but draw parallels between Eric Ambler's works and this book.

All in all good story, but note that it is affected by current political views (resulting in rather cliche ending) which might not be to everyone's liking. So if you tend to over-analyse you might not like it. If you read it to enjoy interesting story you will like it.

Recommended to all fans of spy stories. ( )

Life has those moments of serendipity where you pick the exact right book to read at the exact right time. I love those moments. Charles Cumming's books exist in a wonderful place for me, he has a lot of LeCarre but he adds in a lot more "action", if you will, than you would find in a LeCarre novel. His books are always totally plausible which is very difficult to do in this genre, that's some of the LeCarre, and that matters so much to me. When I find something unbelievable or implausible it totally knocks me out of the story. I am demanding in that way. This is what I hope is the first of a new series for Cumming featuring C.K. Carridine who is a spy novelist (roman-a-clef maybe...) who is lured into a complicated and fascinating espionage situation. The book has humor, romance, thrills, and a wonderfully revealed story. I was glued to it and to Mr. Carridine from the first word and actually loved the wrap up, which is often not true in these books. If you like literate, realistic, but also thrilling spy stories then this is for you. I really enjoyed this one. ( )

Kit Carradine writes spy novels , so when he is approached to serve his country by finding a lost agent while at a literary event, he jumps at the chance to make fiction reality. However, he finds the reality far more difficult as he tries to discern who he can and cannot trust.

Kit Carradine, the successful author of several spy novels, has become restless--too many solitary hours spent writing each new adventure. Along comes an opportunity for him to serve England as a real spy and he can't say no. All too soon he discovers just how little he knows about the real world of espionage. ( )

Excellent. Rich characterisation, page-turning prose, an intriguing and contemporary plotline. Recommended. ( )