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gervase_fenA thoroughly entertaining modern day spy thriller, pitting Nate Nash, a twentysomething CIA case officer, against Dominika Egorova, a synaesthesiac SVR operative fresh from the gruelling initiation of the Russian counter-intelligence service’s notorious school of seduction, aka the ‘Sparrow School’. Red Sparrow is full of tradecraft, with an ‘inside baseball’ verite to its descriptions of the routines and techniques of counter espionage (the author had a thirty year career with the CIA). This held my attention partly because of how reassuringly ‘old school’ it all felt – the plot hopscotches across Eastern Europe and the States, stopping off in various rezidentura, safe houses, prisons, and multi-agency taskforce briefing rooms. The book seems even more topical given the use of Vladimir Putin as a malign, off-stage presence for most of the novel (there is no equivalent appearance or even mention any Western counterpart.) It gets an extra point for including the classic ‘exchange of spies across a bridge’ scene, and is the only thriller I’ve come across with recipes for featured dishes at the end of each chapter.
Red Sparrow beat Becky Masterman’s Rage Against the Dying in the Debut Novel category in the Edgar Awards last month –but, to my surprise, has not been entered by Simon and Schuster in any of the categories it qualifies for in this year’s Daggers. (S&S are betting on Tom Rob Smith’s The Farm, Chris Carter’s One by One and Sophie Mckenzie’s Trust in Me instead in the thriller / best novel slots, and Claire Tobin’s The Silversmith’s Wife for debut novel.)
Red Sparrow beat Becky Masterman’s Rage Against the Dying in the Debut Novel category in the Edgar Awards last month –but, to my surprise, has not been entered by Simon and Schuster in any of the categories it qualifies for in this year’s Daggers. (S&S are betting on Tom Rob Smith’s The Farm, Chris Carter’s One by One and Sophie Mckenzie’s Trust in Me instead in the thriller / best novel slots, and Claire Tobin’s The Silversmith’s Wife for debut novel.)
