I’d been keeping an eye out for this second novel from David McCloskey following Damascus Station, and had a very enjoyable few days rattling through this tale of CIA-triggered Russian oligarch internecine war.
Some of the characters from Damascus Station return, primarily Artemis Proctor who is a larger-than-life hard-ass CIA chief. She adds comic relief albeit in a cliched/cartoonish sort of way; after two books there still isn’t much depth to her.
The plot in and around the Russian elite and their wealth feels very relevant, particularly given the Ukraine war and associated sanctions; more could perhaps have been made of the unscrupulous London legal practioners enabling and assisting the money laundering activities.
McCloskey has been described as the modern Le Carre but I feel his plots are a little more contrived, with less subtlety than the master; a more childish divide between the good guys and the bad. And with Le Carre there is always a sense of dislocation and misdirection for the reader, whereas in this book it is the characters themselves that experience these sensations while the reader is often far better informed.
A fun read but nowhere near a classic of the genre.
