A Divided Spy (Book Review)

Title: A Divided Spy (Thomas Kell #3)
Author: Charles Cumming
Publication: Hardcover, St. Martin’s Press, 2017
Genre: Suspense

Plot: Thomas Kell is a British spy, forced into retirement and, thus, at loose ends. His former colleague, Amelia Levene, is now chief of Britain’s Intelligence Service, and twice she has been the cause of Kell being dragged back into undercover activity. One of these episodes ended with the death of a woman the divorced Kell had begun to care for. As this book begins, Kell learns that the Russian agent who caused that death has an illicit relationship that can be used against him. Kell wants revenge but he also wants to “turn” the Russian agent and deliver him to Amelia and her sneering minions who either enjoyed his downfall or simply don’t take him seriously. And then he wonders if he is the one being played. . .

Audience: Fans of sophisticated espionage or suspense, such as John LeCarré, Anthony Price, Alan Furst.

My Impressions: This is the third book I have read about Thomas Kell, and each has provided an absorbing, compelling, and, at times, frightening story. There is no glamour in the lives of these spies: Kell acknowledges that his lifestyle and obsession with work ruined his marriage and the incident that destroyed his career is something that would likely have been swept under the rug for someone better politically connected. Instead, he is depressed and low in funds. However, Kell is talented and his disdain for others’ opinions, while it has not won him any popularity contests, seems to help him analyze and anticipate how the enemy will react. This is why Amelia and her ilk come to him for help with international situations, although they find him insubordinate. One of the things I have enjoyed in all three books is the detailed descriptions of surveillance: the set up, the long hours watching (and tedium), the details that can and do go wrong, and the exhilaration when events start moving.

The author is skilled at creating minor but vivid characters as Kell’s foil. My favorites, in this book are very different: Rosie, a shop girl who has unwittingly been dating a terrorist, and Marquand, a high level intelligence agent who acts as if meeting with Kell “is an interruption in his day that he could have done without.” When the meeting is over, “[t]here had been no trace of the years they had spent together as colleagues, no acknowledgment of the awkwardness of the situation, nor of Marquand’s role in exacerbating it.” I know I am often forced to work with people like this and pretend I don’t notice their arrogance. It is a testament to Kell’s skill that he is (eventually) able to persuade Rosie and Marquand to trust him.

I wasn’t entirely convinced by the basic premise of this book – Minasian’s illicit relationship – but I was willing to suspend my disbelief for a great read.

Source: I first learned of Charles Cumming by reading a glowing review in Publishers Weekly and highly recommend this series, ideally by beginning with the first book, A Foreign Country. A pre-publication copy of A Divided Spy was provided to me by the publisher for review purposes.

Tough Justice: Countdown by Carla Cassidy (Book Review)

Title: Tough Justice: Countdown (part 1 of 8, currently priced at $.99 each)
Author: Carla Cassidy
Publication: Harlequin Intrigue, ebook, February 2017
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Giveaway: I can give away one digital copy of Book 1 - see below

Plot: Tick. Tock. BOOM.

FBI Special Agent Lara Grant had thought that she’d put her past behind her—finally—with her last case. But now a serial bomber is targeting Manhattan’s elite power players, offering them a choice between saving hundreds of lives or seeing their darkest secrets exposed. Lara is working with the Crisis Management Unit to stop the bomber, but how will she react when she’s the one who has to choose between truth…or death?

Law and Disorder (Book Review)

Title: Law and Disorder, Book 1, The Finnegan Connection
Author: Heather Graham
Publication: Harlequin Intrigue, paperback, January 2017
Genre: Romantic Suspense

Plot: Kidnapped while visiting her family home in Florida, Dakota “Kody” Cameron has no one to turn to – except the unexpectedly attractive man holding a gun. Outnumbered and trapped in the deadly Everglades, she has little recourse, but something in this captor’s eyes make her believe he is not as evil as the other men threatening her. Does she dare trust him?

Plaid and Plagiarism (Book Review)

Title: Plaid and Plagiarism: Book 1 in the Highland Bookshop Mystery Series
Author: Molly MacRae
Publication: Pegasus, Hardcover, 2016
Genre: Mystery

Description: Janet, a middle-aged librarian from Illinois, her friend Christine, Janet’s daughter Tallie, and Tallie’s friend Summer, have moved to Inversgail in Scotland to run a bookstore, Ye Bonnie Books.

Favorite Reads from 2016

According to Goodreads, I read 142 books in 2016 (this does not include rereads, however - my own calculations indicate that I read 149 books, not to mention that reading four Game of Thrones books is like reading a dozen ordinary books!).  Here are my favorites:

Suspense

The Dead House, Fiona Griffiths, #5 – Harry Bingham
This is the most compelling suspense series you haven’t heard of and I insist you go back and start with the first book in the series, Talking to the Dead. Set in Wales, this one is set against the backdrop of a mysterious monastery. Fiona is an extremely odd but endearing detective whose commitment to victims she is assigned to investigate (and those she is not) takes precedence over everything else in her life. She is also desperate to decipher the secrets of her birth, and it seems likely these two story lines will stay connected as the series continues.

I Let You Go – Clare Mackintosh
The despair of Jenna Gray, the main character in this novel of suspense is almost too much to bear and requires occasional application of Kleenex. The story begins with a fatal car crash, then follows Jenna, as she tries to escape from her past in a remote cottage in Wales, while back in Bristol, two detectives are trying to track her down. I liked the detectives and hope the author will return to them in a future book.

Skating Shoes by Noel Streatfeild (Book Review)

Title: Skating Shoes (UK title: White Boots)
Author: Noel Streatfeild
Illustrator: Richard Floethe
Publication: Random House, Hardcover, 1951 (currently available in pb)
Genre: Juvenile fiction Setting: London

Description: Harriet Johnson has been ill and her doctor is concerned about her slow recovery so recommends ice skating. The Johnson family is delightful but impoverished: father George makes an inadequate living running a London shop in which he sells random produce etc. sent up from the country by his brother, mother Olivia manages meals for six out of the merchandise no one will purchase, and Harriet’s brothers immediately come up with a plan to subsidize her skating.

Some Writer! The Story of E. B. White (Book Review)

Title: Some Writer! The Story of E. B. White
Author: Melissa Sweet with Afterword by Martha White
Publication: 2016, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Hardcover
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction

Description: This is an illustrated biography of the beloved author of Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan, created by a gifted artist of mixed media. It starts with his childhood and provides a vivid depiction of young Elwyn’s, later called Andy, childhood in NYC and first exposure to Maine. His love of country life in Maine gave him deep pleasure and enabled him to craft stories about anthropomorphic characters that have entertained generations of children.

Home Dec In-a-Sec...Not

About 18 months ago, I suddenly realized my dining room did not have curtains, only tired shades the previous owners had left behind.  I shopped for some time but it was impossible to find anything that seemed right or fit.  Although I had not done much sewing recently, I found a pattern for valences that seemed simple and estimated two hours.   I chose the style in the bottom left:

The pattern was much more complicated than I expected.   I brought it with me to two of my favorite fabric stores for help figuring out how much fabric I needed and even these experts were perplexed!  I also emailed McCall's customer service for assistance and they explained which instructions to use (they also said the two hours applied to sewing time, not cutting, layout, or agonizing over the instructions).  As my brother would say, "Learning a lot about McCall's..."

I am sure I had spent at least 10 hours reading the pattern before I even found blue paisley I liked.  I bought the entire length of fabric because I knew that matching the paisley would be difficult (and it was).  Every time I was developing momentum, someone would come to visit and I would have to remove everything from the dining room table - the only surface big enough for all the fabric!   And then there was the day I reached page 8 and read:

"Using a hack saw, cut metal bar to Width Between Brackets measurements minus 1"

Don't you think it's just a little passive aggressive to lure me into a deux heures pattern and just assume I own a hacksaw?   For the record, I do not, and I think there should have been a hacksaw warning on the package.   Reading that instruction still makes me laugh.  It took several months to find a plausible metal bar and to get someone to cut it, then to choose new curtain rods (when the first set were not sturdy enough) which the same guy mounted for me.  Try explaining to men in a hardware store what a valence is and why you need a specially cut metal bar!  And by now we are up to dozens of hours.  The windows are slightly different sizes which added to the complexity and the feeling I was doing everything twice and not making progress. But that scallopy look was tricky...

Still, all's well that ends well!  I added the last blue ties tonight and both valences were done, about a year after I bought the pattern!

What do you think?