Free Agent

Starred review from May 18, 2009
Set in London and Nigeria during the latter’s 1969 civil war with flashbacks to the months after WWII, Duns’s terrific debut will draw inevitable comparisons to early John le Carré, though the lead character, turncoat British Secret Service agent Paul Dark, is a complete original. In Nigeria, KGB agent Vladimir Slavin has asked the British for asylum, offering in trade the name of a Soviet mole lodged in the upper echelons of the Secret Service. That mole, we soon learn, is Paul, an ideological victim of youth and notions of revenge, who in 1945 assisted his father, a fellow MI6 operative, in a number of secret missions to hunt down and kill Nazi war criminals. Paul flees to Africa, where he expects to find a former Russian nurse he once loved and whom he once believed long dead. Seldom has a thriller plot taken more unseen turns as Paul searches for the truth about his past and the reality of his present. Readers will eagerly await the sequel.

May 15, 2009
Journalist Duns debuts with a thriller offering more spins than a Bolshoi gala, as an MI6 agent combs Nigeria for a lost love who can untangle a labyrinthine scheme devised during World War II.

In 1969, Paul Dark is summoned by his boss to discuss a Soviet agent, now in Nigeria. Eager to defect, the Russian has promised he'll finger a British agent turned by Moscow in 1945. Fearing a scandal, the Chief asks Dark to take the case, which involves a nurse who may have blown the cover on Dark's father when he undertook an operation in Germany during the war. Dark listens, then pulls a Luger and dispatches the Chief. Flashbacks reveal that as the war ended Dark's father enlisted him in an operation to kill German SS officers. Pursuing one of them, Dark is stabbed. He recuperates at a hospital where he learns his father has abandoned him, leaving a letter telling him to return to England. Dark falls hard for a woman posing as a nurse who is really a Soviet agent. She tries, unsuccessfully, to turn him for the Russians. Then Dark finds his father, shot in the head. Since the nurse may be the same nurse the chief mentioned, Dark must now find her to unravel the case. Once Dark lands in Nigeria, a puzzle promising complexities worthy of le Carr becomes a colorless tale. Like many a noir hero, Dark is drawn to a mysterious woman in a bar. In this case she is Isabelle Dumont, a writer for Agence France-Presse. He trusts her only after he strip-searches her at gunpoint, then makes love to her. The two embark on a trek involving capture, escape and an assassination plot. Eventually Dark brings MI6 the information they need. His superiors spin matters into one final, dry twist that mocks his sense of being a free agent.

The plotting is delectably tricky, but the character of Dark requires more shading before he returns for the promised next episode.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

June 1, 2009
In 1970, British agent Paul Dark is called upon to unearth a double agent in MI6. But he is the double agent. Soon he is on the run from both MI6 and the KGB. Disobeying orders, Paul flies to Nigeria in the midst of the Biafran civil war. If he wants to avoid exposure, he must find and kill the woman he lovedand thought had died25 years years before. VERDICT This debut novel, the first in a trilogy featuring Paul Dark, is superior fiction, with an unexpected twist.DK

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2009
Agent Paul Dark trails a double agent in this appealing debut. During World War II, Dark lost both the love of his life and his father during a secret mission. Twenty-five years later, he works for British intelligence but still cant forget his past. When a KGB officer asks to defect and claims to have proof of a double agent working for the British, Dark heads to Nigeria at the height of civil unrest in the region to bring in the defector and verify his proof. Dark fits his namesake, and the story line has plenty of twists and turns. A series to watch for fans of cold war espionage.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)