Tom Greer's Blog - Posts Tagged "spy"

Last month a friend and I were in Amsterdam where much of the action in "An Expendable Spy" takes place. While we were there we decided to undertake the "Jack Tate Amsterdam Tour" visiting the various places in that interesting city British Intelligence agent, Jack Tate,visited in his quest to meet up with West German terrorist, Hans-Dieter Schuster.

My companion persuaded me (against my better judgement)to pose with the paperback version of the novel in front of the door to Room 26 (not my actual room)of the hotel where some of the Amsterdam action takes place. Although it wasn't my room, in the novel is WAS Jack Tate's room.

You can imagine the look of bewilderment on the young Chinese couple's faces when they saw me - book in hand - having my photo taken in front of THEIR room!

Anyway, to see more photos from the "Jack Tate Amsterdam Tour" and further description of my time in Amsterdam please nip across to my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/tomgreerwrit...

And while you're there please feel free to Like my page.

Does anyone still read Len Deighton? I see Le Carre feted all over the place and now even authors such as Alan Furst but Deighton' spy novels seem to have gone out of fashion.

Maybe it's because he doesn't seem to be writing anymore and hasn't addressed the contemporary espionage issues away from the Cold War era.

I'm about to re-read "Funeral in Berlin" and can recommend it to any other lovers of Spy Fiction.

"The Ipress Files" can at times be hard going but people should also try his 80s based "Game, Set and Match", "Hook, Line and Sinker" and "London, Berlin, Moscow" trilogy of trilogies featuring the British spy, Bernard Samson.

C'mon, people, time to put Deighton back on the spy fiction map where he belongs... at the top!

Read my recent interview with Bristol Book Blog here...

http://brsbkblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/...

The Geneva Trap by Stella Rimington

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Stella Rimington has the actual advantage of having run a major Intelligence agency so she knows what she's talking about.

Unfortunately, just because someone is an expert in the field doesn't automatically make them a good or interesting author. For instance, a lot of ex-policemen who write detective fiction write rather dull books. Why? Because they get stuck in the minutia of procedure rather than actually telling a gripping story.

Good Crime and spy novels only have to appear authentic; they don't have to actually be authentic. John LeCarre, who was a serving MI6 officer at the time, once said that if "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" had actually been truely authentic his superiors would never have allowed him to publish it. The point is LeCarre was such a great writer he made it seem effortlessly authentic, and that's what matters.

Rimmington is not a great writer. She is a "ho-hum" writer. The plot is fine, if a tad pedestrian and and nothing about the novel really stands out. It's a spy novel by an ex-spy chief rather than a pro like LeCarre or Deighton.

That said, it's a reasonable enough, if forgettable, read and if you enjoy spy fiction you could do worse.



View all my reviews

Just to let you know "An Expendable Spy" is on a Countdown promotion deal in the UK and the US from 16th May until the 23rd May.

You can grab a discounted copy right now from US Amazon at;
An Expendable Spy US Amazon Countdown Promotion

You can grab a discounted copy right now from UK Amazon at;
An Expendable Spy UK Amazon Countdown Promotion

I hope you drop by, download and enjoy!

Tom

‘An Expendable Spy’ is FREE today and for the next 5 days from Amazon US at https://www.amazon.com/Expendable-Spy...
And from Amazon UK at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Expendable-S...

Enjoy