To access your ebook(s) after purchasing, you can download the free Glose app or read instantly on your browser by logging into Glose. Secret agent Lachlan Kite faces peril in Dubai as a brutal ghost from his past works his way down a Russian kill list – with Lachlan and one of his key contacts next in line.

Often hailed as the heir to John le Carré, Charles Cumming sets out his credentials as well as he ever has in Judas 62. A strangely stilted book, partly down to the new (slightly wooden) narrator but also through the storytelling. I am also not super well-versed when it comes to spy novels so perhaps my evaluation isn’t as full as it could be. Spanning London, Russia and Dubai, Judas 62 is an old school espionage thriller that aficionados of the genre will love! Cumming's fifth novel, The Trinity Six, a thriller about the discovery of a sixth member of the Cambridge spies ring, was published in 2011.The second Box 88 novel concerns Lachlan Kite's second job for the organisation, back in 1993 when he was a student, given the task of extracting a Russian scientist who wants to defect, and then later during the pandemic, when the Russians have put not only the defector on an assassination list, but also the alias that Kite was going under back in the 90s. BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. In this case, though, I found the 1993 timeline dragged—which is unfortunate, since it takes up over half the book. The story spans the decade from the transfer of the sovereignty of Hong Kong in 1997 to present-day Shanghai. I’ve yet to read one yet, but I think if I’m in the mood for a spy novel again I’ll probably read one of Daniel Silva’s books instead.

The pandemic details are quite nice (although may not age well) but there are too many people doing not very much. Lachlan Kite is a “spy” and in the first book he was sent to Russia to extricate a chemical weapons scientist who.

Is he, Martha, or his family in danger of Russian assassins like so many other names on the list who have recently been killed? In the first book I was hoping to understand Lockie’s relationship triangle with Martha and Isobel more in the sequel.