Is he, Martha, or his family in danger of Russian assassins like so many other names on the list who have recently been killed? In 2012, Charles won the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller and the Bloody Scotland Crime Book of the Year for A Foreign Country. So even though Cumming tells me that Lockie loves Isobel and his daughter and wants to reconcile, everything else in the book makes me feel like Lockie is still in love with Martha and is a bit of a womanizer.

The 1993 background plot, involving the exfiltration of an agent from the Soviet Union reminded me strongly of Ben Mcintyre’s real life account in his brilliant book A Spy abd a Traitor . Then we switch to the modern day and his old mission becomes relevant again, and Kite and his team may have to sacrifice everything to resolve issues from the past.

I found both timelines equally fascinating, the younger Lockie and the differences in the more mature and reflective man in the present, and the many ways in which Toby Landau in Dubai exhibits similar qualities to the younger Lockie. My thanks to HarperCollins UK and NetGalley for supplying a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This political thriller tells the story of Aranov’s escape from Russia in the 90’s and the Judas story in the present day which takes place principally in Dubai. I had to chuckle at this relatable tidbit: “a recycling bucket marked ‘supposedly saving the planet.

So far I’ve appreciated new books that ignore that part of life and keep settings free of that nonsense. The pandemic details are quite nice (although may not age well) but there are too many people doing not very much. He uses Aranov as bait to compromise Mikhail Gromik, the Russian intelligence officer who caused Kite problems in 1993 and who is also at the centre of the Judas List terminations. They succeed, but the escape is a harrowing one and on their tail the entire time is a brutal and very suspicious member of the KGB/FSK by the name of Gromik.

The supporting cast are again pretty well developed/developing, with some very good aspects in play around MI6 operatives and covers.