I grew up during the height of the Cold War. The USSR was the big boogie man. Communism wanted to destroy our way of life. Then the Wall came down and the Soviet Empire fell. The insidious fear of the ever-present threat was gone. We had PEACE and the promise of a new world. But that didn’t last. The world found itself being forced to deal with threats from the past. Putin claimed Russia for himself and the World finds itself confronted with the brutal invasion of Crimea and Ukraine, Russian oligarchs, and Russian crime. So as an escape where did I turn? Television? Slow Horses on Apple+ and Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime. Reading? RED LONDON by Alma Katsu. Russia is once again. EVERYWHERE. The stories are engaging. The menace is real. And Putin’s Russia makes for a great villain.
Lyndsey Duncan is back, and what she is involved in is complicated and a little confusing. Katsu teases us with the story of a Russian war criminal, but we end up getting the story of a Russian oligarch. While I did not find RED LONDON as engaging as Katsu’s first book in the series, RED WIDOW, at times I did lose myself in the story. You won’t lose your breath trying to keep up with a Jason Bourne or a Jack Ryan, but the real-world stakes are just as high. The psychology of manipulation was intriguing, as was the Anglo-American intelligence cooperation but I couldn’t find much to like about Emily, the British wife of the oligarch and Lyndsey’s target. By the end, I did feel a bit sorry for her. This story is rife with secret identities, private contractors, ex-lovers, clandestine meetings, and so much more. Who can Lyndsey trust? This is a different type of spy game.
This book is fiction, but Katsu pulls from her 30-plus career in national security. And while she did her best to portray world events, she, like so many others, couldn't have predicted that the war on Ukraine would still be taking its murderous toll on the country and the people there. It seems with Putin, there is no level to his depravity and with the rest of Russia, they seem too scared to do what is right and put an end to this madness.
I really tried to get this book read before launch day. It didn’t have anything to do with the book itself, it was how busy I had made my life. I often find that I stretch myself a little thin. I have my own writing and a few illustration projects that would be enough to keep me busy on their own, but I also have a house to paint, then there’s yard work, the pool, and family life. On top of all that, I try to get in at least an hour of reading every day. I reserve the night for TV with my wife. It’s not quite how I had envisioned retirement.
