The Moroccan Girl

December 1, 2018
When novelist Kit Carradine is approached by a mysterious man calling himself Robert Mantis, he knows his dearest wish has come true--the British government wants to use him as a spy.Kit's assignment involves traveling to Morocco and slipping a passport to Lara Bartok, formerly involved with a group known as Resurrection. Resurrection started as an international movement against corrupt politicians and mouthpieces, but their actions quickly evolved into terrorism as they began kidnapping and even murdering high-profile right-wing figures. In Morocco, Kit runs into an American agent who could burn him; after Mantis fires him, he continues to look for Bartok, and when he finds her, he has to help her escape from the Russians who are chasing her. The two share several intimate days as they get away to Gibraltar and back to England; once home, Kit must face the fact that no one he has encountered is who they said they were, and the novel ends with a twist and a shootout as old enemies resurface. There is an odd pace to Cumming's (A Divided Spy, 2017, etc.) novel; the early scenes unfold with an almost old-fashioned slowness, full of allusions to Casablanca and Cary Grant, that lends a romantic haze to the very 21st-century spy games. Kit, of course, wants to be a spy in a novel or a movie, and when he's faced with the true nature of such a life, he's rather desperate to cling to his illusions--about Lara, about the craft of espionage, and about the exotic settings in which he finds himself. But once Kit finds Lara, the pace rachets to a rather dizzying speed, and the climax comes and goes so swiftly there's hardly time to absorb the action.Seduces with its romantic settings and tantalizing touches of modern-day conspiracy.

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Starred review from February 15, 2019
The inadvertent spy?an amateur cajoled by professionals, taking advantage of circumstance, into playing a part in a covert operation?has long been a popular trope in espionage fiction. Helen MacInnes, John le Carr�, and many others have used the gambit to good advantage, and, similarly, there are numerous spy authors who have drawn on their own clandestine service to fuel their fiction: notably, Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, and, of course, le Carr� himself. Cumming uses both phenomena effectively in this stand-alone thriller (there are hints of a series to come) about British spy novelist Kit Carradine, drafted by MI6 to make contact with a fugitive terrorist at a writers' conference in Casablanca. It seems simple enough?connect with the woman, Lara Bartok, who appears ready to come in from the cold after her years with a terrorist group called Resurrection, which started with humanitarian protests and quickly turned violent. Dreaming of a more active life, Kit is game but quickly discovers he is out of his depth. Keeping track of the players, who's on whose side, for example, is difficult enough, especially when some of the shady characters he encounters turn up dead. And then there's Lara, with whom Kit inevitably falls in love and whose backstory is far more complex than he was led to believe. The best part of inadvertent spy novels is watching the newbies forced to think on their feet, making up tradecraft as they go, and Kit does it very well, indeed. Another winner from the superbly talented Cumming.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)