A Divided Spy

Starred review from December 12, 2016
In bestseller Cumming’s nuanced, suspenseful third Thomas Kell novel (after 2014’s A Colder War), the London-based former MI6 agent, who’s been a private citizen for 12 months since the assassination in Istanbul of his girlfriend and fellow spy, Rachel Wallinger, receives a call from Harold Mowbray, a private contractor with whom he has worked on several missions. Mowbray wants to have a face-to-face chat, and they agree to meet at a Middle Eastern restaurant that evening. Over dinner, Mowbray reveals that during a recent vacation with his wife to an Egyptian Red Sea resort he spotted Russian SVR officer Alexander Minasian, whom Kell holds personally responsible for Rachel’s death. Kell sets up a trap using Minasian’s lover, Bernhard Riedle, and persuades his old boss, SIS chief Amelia Levene, to help him capture Minasian. The hows and whys of the mission slowly unfold in a perfectly constructed plot that proves once again that Cumming is among today’s top spy thriller writers. After a complicated, riveting finale, a moving coda suggests that readers may have seen the last of Thomas Kell. Say it ain’t so, Charles. 75,000 announced first printing; author tour. Agent: Luke Janklow, Janklow & Nesbit.