Charles Beaumont (2)

One source of pride for those of us on the dark blue side of the centuries-old Oxbridge rivalry is the absence of a notorious Oxford spy ring, while the history of treachery is littered with alumni from that institute over in the fenlands. Of course, this may merely mean that any such circle of traitors recruited through Oxford connections has yet to be uncovered, but perhaps that might also be a source of pride, in that Oxonians cover their tracks more effectively.

But I digress. It is just show more such a circle of establishment figures recruited against the backdrop of the dreaming spires of Oxford that lies at the heart of this gripping spy novel by Charles Beaumont. His protagonist, Simon Sharman, is a former MI5 officer who now works in the shadowy fringes of the private intelligence sector, although with limited success. His financial travails are temporarily alleviated when a larger operator in the field subcontracts him to take on what initially purports to be a fairly routine vetting procedure. This unexpectedly propels Simon back into his own past as an undergraduate in Oxford, brushing up against several of his contemporaries who have secured greater status in their later lives that him.

In recent years I have become fairly ruthless at abandoning books that do not engage me very quickly, and I came very close to giving up on this one, as the plot seemed to advance with almost glacial slowness over the first few chapters. However, I am glad that I persevered, and am now eagerly awaiting the publication of A Spy at War, the sequel scheduled for early next year. show less

‘Ware the warlords of our modern times!

Slow start to what becomes a rather compelling story of international intrigue, based mainly on Russian oligarch connections.
Simon Sharmon is our key player, an ex Oxford man, ex intelligence officer who’s operating freelance now.
An acquaintance, Marcus Peebles, employs Simon to look into a mid level oligarch Georgy Sidorov, with reference to an endowerment to Sharmon’s Oxford College, especially at this time of the war in Ukraine.
The action show more switches between Simon’s Oxford student days, the late nineties and early 2000’s to the mid 2000’s—from Ukraine and Crimea, to the present.
By the end I’m feeling totally paranoid, haunted by the vision of a net of various intelligence agents and investigators from a variety of countries crisscrossing the United Kingdom like one of those diagrams of millions of interconnecting internet webs. Only to my mind they’re spiders webs spinning out of control in the underbelly of our world. Grrr! But who or what’s at the center?
Brexit comes in for a drubbing. Apparently forces were at work to make it happen, leaving Europe vulnerable and open to being ravaged by the Russian Bear. Or is it just the oligarchs and powerful corporations hiding their activities behind various shell companies? If I wasn’t paranoid before with the rise of populism, the spread of international drug lords, human trafficking, the craziness of Putin and his cronies, Britain isolating itself—then I am now. I could be wearing an al foil hat soon!
The question of was there an Oxford spy ring to equal the Cambridge fifties one of Blunt et.al. resonates and Simon’s investigations uncover so much more. Simon’s digging opens up a minefield of boggling possibilities.
An exciting thriller, seemly all too accurate, that left me breathless in its magnitude.
The fact that it’s written by an ex intelligence officer sends cold shivers down my spine.
Beaumont’s certainly up there with my favorite spy writers. The mind games of Le Carré are recalled.

A Canelo ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher. show less

By setting this book in the present time but having an older, now working privately, spy as the protaganist, you get the best of both modern and old-time spy work in this book. OSINT is used, Open source intelligence, plus pass-by drops all in one story that goes backwards and forwards between 2022 and 1993.

When old spies meet in shabby pubs to lament the state of the modern world, one of the things they say is that nobody learns the old skills. Anti-surveillance, counter-surveillance, it's show more all been forgotten. These days, its all done by tracking your phone, those little beacons we all carry with us, shining out to any of the world's intelligence agencies.
p1

The spy, Simon Sharman, is asked to investigate a Russian who wants to donate money to a university and the university doesn't want to be involved in dirty money. Sharman looks into the Russian but not everything is as it seems. It very soon turns into a much larger investigation into the heart of whether there was a spy ring at Oxford and if so, where are they now. A little problematic for Sharman who was present at Oxford during the time this was all going on.

It turns out that the UK via the prime minister is about to do a deal with Russia, through oligarchs, to develop a large data cable so the book follows a theme of the way Russian money is so deeply embedded in our economy: property in London; investments in infrastructure and general spending power. Very relevant.

I loved some of the detail. For instance, when Sharman is followed he looks at the shoes of the people around him to spot when the shoes reappear. Those tracking him changed their clothing but not their shoes and so he was able to find the people who were 'boxing' him in as they tracked him.

It is their shoes that give them away. As a lifelong fieldman, Simon Sharman hasn't forgotten the lesson: walkers might change their jackets, pull on a pair of glasses, even a wig. But nobody changes their shoes on a job. Look at their shoes.
p1

A great book that I read in two sittings. I enjoyed it much more than the short stories. show less

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

Simon, a former spy, is employed to investigate a Russian oligarch who apparently wants to make a substantial donation to an Oxford college, but in doing so, he uncovers evidence that a Russian spy ring may have been active at Oxford for decades. I enjoyed this and read it quickly, although there was quite a lot of complex information about Russia and Ukraine and economics and politics and history (sometimes helpfully explained show more by one character to another) and some of this went a bit over my head.

I thought the author did a good job of keeping the reader unsure of who Simon could trust. I loved the parts set in Oxford and the mention of my old college, and enjoyed all the spycraft - I'm always going to look at the shoes of people I think might be following me from now on. I found it flowed much better once the flashbacks were over and we were settled in 2022. I didn't really buy into the attraction Simon and Sarah were apparently feeling for one another and I found the ending depressing, although I am sure it was realistic. show less