Matthew Richardson (4)

A synopsis of Matthew Richardson’s excellent espionage novel might ring bells among the spy fiction cognoscenti. It opens with a retired senior spook being approached by the National Security Adviser, and commissioned to undertake an urgent investigation. She has very robust evidence to suggest the existence of a Russian mole placed high in the echelons of the most senior officials overlooking the security services, and the culprit could be one of four possible candidates.

Yes, this book show more revisits the premise behind one of the most accomplished and well known spy novels, John le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, in which George Smiley was called back from retirement (in his case imposed from above, rather than sought voluntarily) to investigate four of his senior former colleagues, and establish which was the traitor. However, despite such strong similarities in the basic premise, this is no hollow reworking of le Carré’s work. Solomon Vine is a very different character from George Smiley, although they both emerged from similarly academic circles. In this book, the four potential culprits are even higher than those whom Smiley had to consider: the Head of MI6, the Permanent Secretary of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Chief of Defence Staff, and the Cabinet Secretary.

The plot is labyrinthine, so I will say no more about the content, beyond the fact that it is highly complex. I don’t know what Matthew Richardson’s background is, but he captures his setting very accurately. His description of the various offices around Whitehall that Vine has to visit seem very accurate – over the years I have worked in two of the buildings that Vine visits, as well as being lucky enough to attend meetings at No. 10 a few times. Richardson’s descriptions are spot on.

He develops the story very capably, and despite the alarming premise of the novel, it never feels at all implausible. He may not have le Carré’s purple prose, but then who else does? On the basis of this novel, and the couple of other that I have read by him, he is right up there with Charles Cumming in competition to be heralded as le Carré’s successor. show less

This is another complex, and compelling, spy novel from Matthew Richardson, all the more notable as I believe it was his first novel. It was initially a bit disconcerting as the story flitted rapidly between the present day and scenes in the past, but once I sorted out where and when episodes were happening, I found it very entertaining.

Basically it follows the story of Solomon Vine, once tipped for rapid advancement in MI6, although his career had been derailed after a prisoner in his care show more was shot, and nearly killed. Several years later, his former close friend is kidnapped in Istanbul, where he had been MI^’s Head of Station. The relationship between the two is fraught as the missing man had married the woman who had previously been Vine’s fiancé. In the meantime, there is increasingly strong evidence that there may be a Russian mole high up in MI6, and Vine becomes convinced it is his former friend.

That brief synopsis makes it all seem a bit frenetic, but in fact the plot develops very smoothly and convincingly. Richardson is not in John le Carré’s league, but he is certainly a strong contender to take up the late master’s mantle. show less

Max Archer, a mediocre academic specialising in the history of intelligence during the Cold War, is approached by Scarlet King, a long retired legendary British spy in the post-Second World War period. Scarlet wants Max to verify her memoirs and help get them published. This is the starting point for this terrific novel that immediately moves into a hall of mirrors where nothing and no one is as they seem and where revelations and reversals appear on almost every page.

Scarlet has two big show more secrets to reveal. Firstly, about Project Hercules that spirited talented Nazi scientists into Britain, giving them new identities and guaranteed work along the way, expunging any criminal deeds they had committed for the Fuhrer. The second secret was that Scarlet, who had reached the highest echelons of the British intelligence community across a very long career, was a Russian spy.

The spycraft elements of this book ring true. All the technical aspects of what a spy would or would not do and how they related to and interacted with their own bosses and other spy agencies are utterly believable. The various characters are all interesting and have a depth and humanity (good or bad) that draws us in to find out how they fail or succeed.

The action is nicely paced and drives the story along, leaving plenty of room for character development and the odd bit of background. This is an excellent read. show less

I have always enjoyed books about spies and espionage, where fiction or factual, and this book manages to straddle both sectors. Although it is clearly a novel, it is peppered throughout with references to real people, many of them involved in one or other of the ‘scandals’ that have rocked the intelligence communities in Britain and America since the end of the Second World War.

Dr Max Archer is an academic, lecturing in political history from the Cold War era, with a particular show more specialisation in intelligence matters. He is intrigued when he receives what appears to be contact from the almost legendary figure of Scarlet King, one of the few women to rise to relative prominence in the cloistered male backwaters of MI5 during the Cold War years. Scarlet offers a meeting, and Archer can’t resist the lure.

This plunges Dr Archer and the reader into a sinuous tale tracking back and forth between the latter years of the Second World War up to around 2010. There are numerous plot twists along the way (some more effectively managed than others), and the pace never flags. While Richardson doesn’t match the purple prose of John le Carré (well who could?), he does keep a firm hold on the reader’s attention.

This book was high octane adventure, and very entertaining. show less