Down Among the Dead Men

Sarah Cable #1

by Michael Hartland

Nepal, 1978. High in the Himalayas, a renegade Chinese agent is brutally murdered while trying to reach the British Embassy in Kathmandu. A Triad revenge killing? Or does the mutilated corpse point to sinister espionage activity that might set the powder-keg of South East Asia ablaze?

Genres: Fiction, Crime

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Before taking up writing, Michael Hartland spent twenty years travelling widely in Europe and the Far East as a diplomat, then working in counter-terrorism and for the United Nations. He draws on this experience to describe the secret world of espionage with insight and great authenticity.

His first book DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN was a runaway bestseller and his ground-breaking series of espionage novels published in the 1980s and 90s established him as one of the leading thriller writers in Britain and the United Sates. They have been translated into twenty-seven European languages and Japanese, adapted for BBC Radio-4 and television - and remain among the most fast-moving and gripping ever published.

Michael Hartland and his family live in Devon, where he is working on a new project inspired by contemporary Islamic terrorism.

Reviews

[Hannelore Cheney]

Thank you Netgalley and Thistle Publishing for the eARC.
It's 1978 and 2 women are exchanged between Russia and Vienna. Things are afoot in Southeast Asia, and it's suspected Russia is heavily involved.
The story takes place in London, Vienna, Nepal, Hong Kong and the coast of Japan.
I must admit to not being a reader of spy novels and getting quite confused. My husband, a spy novel aficionado, is reading it at the moment and quite enjoying it. He will explain all to me when he's finished...
I apologize to the author for not being an intellegent reader of his intelligence novel😭, but given my husband's enjoyment I give the book 3.5 stars.

[Tom]

A rather dark tale that touches on pedophilia, child murder, rape and kidnap. The story line is well paced but there are some leaps of faith that have to be made when coming to the end and would have done better to flesh out a bit more of the characters earlier on to inform their motives that happen later on.

[Quentin Feduchin]

Truly interesting, also very long, with a lot of detail, secret stuff re international spying etc, also murder of course.
A great author, obviously knows something about these subjects.
Well worth reading.

[Eric_W]

Michael Hartland was a complete unknown to me until I downloaded Down Among the Dead Men from Audiobooksforfree.com.
This novel is an excellent Le Carré type spy novel set during the Carter administration and explains the Chinese invasion/incursion into Vietnam in the late seventies. To say too much more would give away the surprise ending.
David Nairn is Ben Foo’s British controller. Foo is a Chinese British agent based in Hong Kong. One of his agents has been killed while trying to reveal some important information related to Lin, a mysterious man who has ostensible connections with the Taipei regime. The British send Ruth, an inexperienced agent to Hong Kong to shadow Lin and soon a bizarre connection is revealed between Anna Levshina, a Russian KGB agent named Golovkin, a secretive KGB major general Kirov and Lin. They all appeared together in a photo taken in Vietnam during the fifties in the war against the French. Nairn manipulates Ruth and the other players in an attempt to discover a connection that is ultimately revealed to be a plot to obtain atomic weapons by the Taiwanese government. But as in all good spy novels, nothing is ever what it appears to be.

[Nancy]

This book takes place while Hong Kong is still part of the British Empire. It starts of with two women being exchanged from Russia to Vienna by the British. Though at the time it is hard to tell what this has to do with anything, it is important to the story.
Southeast Asia is a powder keg of espionage and intrigue. Something is happening and it involves the Russians. The British are trying to follow those involved but some misleads are involved and this story takes you from Vienna to London to Hong Kong to the coast of Japan. You have to stay on the move or you are left behind.
Benjamin Foo has an interesting past but with the help of the triad is helping the secret British agents to find out what Ling is up to but can they find out what is happening in time.

[Kay Hardy]

Decent enough storyline but hadn’t aged very well in its attitudes to women and young girls … cringed a few times .