Typhoon in Espionage Aficionados

Jun 11, 2018 Jill rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, thriller, china

Dragged midway thru and ended with a nice bang!

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Nov 26, 2009 Jeffrey rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: espionage, read-in-2009

The novel starts in the future with Joe Lennox a british spy asking one of his agents, the narrator, to write a story about the Typhoon operation.

The novel then drops back to the past in Hong Kong, where it all began. Joe Lennox is a NOC, an undercover agent for MI6, one of the British equivalent's for the CIA. He is undercover in Hong KOng right before the turnover of that country from Great Britain to the Chinese. Isabella, a beautiful reporter is his lover, but is unaware of his real career. The novel starts in the future with Joe Lennox a british spy asking one of his agents, the narrator, to write a story about the Typhoon operation.

The novel then drops back to the past in Hong Kong, where it all began. Joe Lennox is a NOC, an undercover agent for MI6, one of the British equivalent's for the CIA. He is undercover in Hong KOng right before the turnover of that country from Great Britain to the Chinese. Isabella, a beautiful reporter is his lover, but is unaware of his real career. Miles Coolidge is a CIA agent who is overt in what he does, and he knows what JOe Lennox's job actually is. Miles is envious of Lennox's youth and also wants Isabella. Lennox plans to propose to Isabella at one of the parties prior to the handoff.

Lennox is at dinner with Miles, Isabella and another reporter, who is a nameless reporter and narrator of the story. He also knows what Lennox does because Lennox is his handler. Lennox receives a call and is sent to interview Wang at a British safehouse. Wang is a Chinese defector who has swam from old China to Hong Kong with information about atrocities committed by the Chinese in one of the more Muslim provences. He has been captured by a British soldier. Miles figures out that something is up and using another British agent Ken Lenan, who he has turned to working against British interests, basically steals Wang from the safehouse for the purpose of bringing him back to China to run a terror network run by Miles and the Americans for the purpose of undermining the Chinese regime. The plan is codenamed Typhoon.

After Wang is whisked away, Miles learns from Kenan that Lennox plans to propose to Isabella, and Miles plans to use on of his sources to get Isabella away from Lennox by revealing that he is a spy who has been lying to her during their two year courtship. The plan works to perfection and Isabella turns to Miles.

8 years pass, and Lennox is approached by his boss about running an operation in Shanghai, where Lennox will again go undercover as having left MI6 so that he can find out if Miles is still running the Typhoon operation as several British subjects who were involved have turned up dead. Miles has been plannng to turn his terror network loose upon the Olympic games in two years but wants them to stay low right now. However, once you arm a terrorist, its hard to control who they want to kill. It turns out that one of the main recruits in the terror network that Miles is running has been indoctrinated against USA interests by the Pakastani secret service and his muslim brothers, and is moving out from under Miles control with his own plan.

Lennox is eager to do go against Miles b/c Miles is married to Isabella, who lives with him in China. It all comes to a head in an ending that was telegraphed in the beginning to some extent.

Cumming's latest spy novel, a New York Times noteworthy book, is great for the setting and the characters and that spycraft did not end with the Cold War and Le Carre. these are not the novels of secret boxes, but is a world where terror is the linchpin. Although there is collateral damage in the novel and the human drama between Miles, Wang, Lennox and Isabella which forms the core of the novel is well written and convincing, I found the novel a touch antiseptic.

All of the violence takes place off screen, with people finding out about others being killed, beaten or brutalized after the fact. I think this is part of the narration because its supposed to be from the reporter. Further we never feel that Lennox is in danger. Maybe that is because of the plot devise of starting the novel, with Lennox having escaped some kind of explosion.

Nonetheless, this appears to be a more modern take on the spy novel as the action takes place in the far east and involves terrorism. Also its a conflict between Britain and the US, which is unusual.

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Jan 12, 2019 Michael Martz rated it it was amazing

'Typhoon', Charles Cumming's 4th spy novel, is yet another winner for my candidate for Current World's Greatest Spy Novelist. It's complicated, many names of people and places are unpronounceable, and the CIA is exposed taking actions that we Americans probably think they wouldn't do, but on the other hand it's beautifully written with a great plot and interesting characters, is set in exotic locations, and has one of those endings that are sort of in the gray area, with neither the good guys or ...more

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