"Agent 6" by Tom Rob Smith

This is the third book of a trilogy featuring Moscow detective and secret agent Leo Demidov; the other books are Child 44 and The Secret Speech.

Agent 6 is split into two halves. The first half, set in 1965, recounts a diplomatic school trip from Moscow to the UN which results in political intrigue, assassination and murder. The second half takes place during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1980 and the rise of the Mujahadeen. The two halves scarcely talk to one another.

The author writes in small bites, carefully entitled with the place and date, for example 'Soviet-Finnish border, Soviet checkpoint, 760 kilometres NW of Moscow, 240 km NE of Helsinki, New Year's Day 1973'. Some of these sections last only two or three pages. This gives the book a breathless feel which might be mistaken for excitement. It also makes the story rather disjointed. It is, I suppose, a very filmic technique. Each mini story is like an individual frame; together they make the film. But I found it flickered.

A lot of the characters do things and/ or suffer things that are evil and wicked and there is a certain amount of moral perspective offered but a lot of this seems to be told to us rather than the reader being shown the moral vacuums by the actions and dialogues of the characters. The overall feeling is that the plot is in charge of the characters and they are puppets reading their lines, unable to stray from the script.

I think that the author believes that he has given each character a back story and therefore clothed them in reality. The FBI Agent, Jim Yates, has an invalid wife. But somehow that detail doesn't animate Jim. He still does what the plot needs him to whether he would or not. It is as if the author had a box of spare clothes and he fished in the box and randomly picked something to dress his character in. But the character doesn't know what he is wearing.

It was hard work to finish the book and in the en I wondered why I had bothered.

May 2014; 543 pages

"The secret speech" by Tom Rob Smith

This is the second of the Leo Demidov trilogy about a former MGB officer in Moscow as Stalin's regime gives way to Khruschev. The title refers to the 'secret' speech given by Khruschev at which he denounced the state security systems for their brutal repressions under Stalin. At the start of the novel these are being distributed to former agents who either then kill themselves from remorse or from fear of what their neighbours will say or who are killed. This is a promising beginning: it offers the opportunity for menace to stalk the city in an atmosphere of moral ambiguity. Leo is, after all, the head of the Homicide Division and unbelievably good at his job, diagnosing that an apparent murder was a concealed suicide within a few minutes of seeing the body. Alas, any pretence at a whodunnit is swiftly abandoned as the Homicide Division is dissolved and the killer reveals herself by kidnapping Leo's adopted daughter in revenge for wrongs done to her by Leo in the past. The story turns into a thriller. Leo must travel to the Hungarian uprising via a prison ship and a Gulag in order to retrieve his daughter who has undergone a Patty Hearst style conversion and fallen for a young pickpocket.

This book has clearly been written with the intention of turning it into an action thriller film. Unfortunately it would be the sort of film that millions watch and I hate. A great deal of action is packed in: the story moves on relentlessly. Tank shells explode all around Leo and his family. Lesser characters are killed off with minimal grieving. Few scenes last longer than a few pages; some moments of potentially high drama last no more than a paragraph.

The characters are mostly shallow and unbelievable. The relationship between the boy who grew up as a pickpocket and became a thriller and the rebellious teenage girl is ludicrous. The transformation of the meek wife of a priest into a hardened manipulative criminal gang leader is justified by suggesting that she became embittered in the gulags. I just don't believe any of it.

Thrill-a-minute action with minimal depth. March 2014, 449 pages