Double Agent: From the bestselling author of Secret Service

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Michaelides takes a literary turn in his latest novel, employing an unreliable narrator, the structure of classical drama, and a self-conscious eye to dismantling the locked-room mystery. Have a senior officer whose husband turned out to be a spy for Russia, go off to Venice to meet up with him; or might she have been placed into a dull desk job rather than at the centre of an investigation into whether the Prime Minister is a Russian spy. For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin. A credible, twisty spy thriller, it was powered along by a clever plot and a strong cast of characters. Kate is clearly under a great deal of strain and the office politics in the intelligence service are just mind boggling.

A follow on from last year's "Secret Service", Kate Atkinson is temporarily kidnapped in Venice by a Russian who wants to defect, and promising compromising video of the British PM, as well as evidence that the PM is on Russia's payroll. The second in the series with Kate Henderson as a senior MI6 intelligence officer in Secret Service. In her investigation of him, however, she does discover that her husband, Stuart, is a Russian agent who's betrayed her as well. The book nonetheless held my interest throughout, with plenty of spy stuff, enough topical associations to make the politics familiar, and plenty of surprises. I read this with The Pigeonhole and it wasn't helped by having one stave every two days, plus reading two other books which came out every day.None of the characters are developed beyond one note, whether that's "annoying", "has affairs" or "depressed". Every time I read about Russia I keep thinking Killing Eve and I am waiting for someone to be assassinated in a ridiculously theatrical style, while dressed as a clown. We use Google Analytics to see what pages are most visited, and where in the world visitors are visiting from. Kate's work life balance is pretty screwed in this second installment of the working mother M15 agent thriller series.

Kate Henderson is back and she has to deal with a possible defection of a prominent Russian and his family. This is not a shoot them up, jump of buildings type thriller, it has strong characterisations and a glimpse of politics within both Government and the intelligence agency. Bradby avoids both these pit-falls to produce an intelligent, thoughtful and meticulously-plotted spy thriller. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs. I love these because Tom Bradby beautifully balances the edge-of-your-seat thriller elements with the spycraft and political infighting.One scene set in Berlinhas guns drawn and a brawl happen 20 metres from Angela Merkel's front door, and the author doesn't seem to realise this, or realise that there is always a police presence there. We learn about Kate’s possibly stalling career and Leo’s plan to apply to acting schools against his mother’s wishes. The paranoia levels here are very high, although very subtle indeed, and as the plot advances, you find yourself, alongside Kate, having trouble to trust anyone, not knowing what's real and what's not. Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense.

We are arguably now entering a new Cold War, with tensions between East and West at its ever increasing height. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. The weapons are less crude, the ideology more subtle - if indefinable, but we have undoubtedly entered a period of renewed hostilities between old enemies. Side by side with the tense spy thrills is the story of the unravelling of M16 agent Kate as she tries to cope with the personal implications of events. K. - Transworld Publishers for their invitation to receive an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Double Agent’ by Tom Bradby in exchange for an honest review.Henderson, head of MI6's Russian desk, has reason to believe James Ryan, the British Prime Minister, is a Russian sleeper agent, but she has been unable to prove it.

Goes to show that thrillers can indeed be intelligent and well thought-out, and not insulting and stupid. The operation goes ahead but once again enemies are aware of the plan, and this time their opposition takes the form of a direct threat to Kate and her family. In his first year in the job he was named Network Presenter of the Year by the Royal Television Society. As an inducement to the West to resettle him, he offers intelligence including evidence that British prime minister James Ryan is a spy working for the Russians. In many ways this was like a ‘tying up loose ends’ from the previous book and was good to be back with Senior MI6’s Kate and the gang as they once again tried to unravel fact from fiction as to whether the PM was indeed a Russian spy!Its the type of book that is full of action and it takes you on a breathtaking ride from England to Venice and Russia. Unexpectedly, she receives an approach from Borodin, a senior agent in Russia’s SVR, successor to the KGB, offering to defect to the West. MI5 officer Kate Henderson and her team had to investigate in a storm of politics and hidden agendas along with the possibility that one of her own team was also a spy. It’s all pretty well done and Tom Bradby knows a lot about what he is writing about here – perhaps to the point of overdoing the detail at times. The atmosphere of the novel, set mostly on this wild Greek island, echoes strongly the classical tragedies of Greece.