A Colder War by Charles Cumming, a Mysterious Review.

Review: After SIS (MI6) station chief Paul Wallinger dies in a suspicious plane crash, discredited agent Tom Kell is brought in to investigate his death, in A Colder War, a spy thriller by Charles Cumming.

Wallinger was the agency's most senior operative in Turkey, monitoring all activities in the Middle East. He was flying a chartered plane from the Greek island of Chios back to Ankara when it crashed. Kell's contact at SIS, Amelia Lavene — who was also Wallinger's sometime lover, a fact known to but a few including Kell — orders Kell to Turkey primarily to determine if the crash was an accident, suicide, or murder, but also in part to ensure that any details of Amelia's relationship with Wallinger would be discretely handled. Why Wallinger was on Chios isn't known, though given his reputation, it is assumed by all he was meeting a woman. As Kell probes the circumstances surrounding the crash, he comes to believe that Wallinger may have been quietly investigating a potential mole in the agency, someone who was passing secrets to the Russians, compromising both British and American intelligence in the region.

Marketed as a "thriller", A Colder War doesn't seem to fit the typical definition of such. There are no action scenes and the tension level is low with minimal suspense. Indeed, it is more a novel of spycraft than anything else. And given that's all it is, it's pretty good. Kell's character is hard to get a handle on. He's obsessed with Wallinger's daughter, to the point of compromising his investigation (and the possibility of restoring his reputation with the agency) but also putting his life, and hers, in danger. The combination of his analytical approach to the case and his emotional involvement in it is hard at times to reconcile. And with the British, Americans, and Russians all using codenames for nearly everyone and everything, it's tricky to keep track of all the identities and associations. Even so, the storyline is nicely structured, well-paced and concludes in a not quite predictable yet not quite surprising manner. The ending itself is a bit open-ended suggesting a sequel may be planned.

Acknowledgment: St. Martin's Press provided a copy of A Colder War for this review.

The Trinity Six
St. Martin's Press (Hardcover), March 2011
ISBN-13: 9780312675295; ISBN-10: 0312675291

A Colder War

A Tom Kell Novel by Charles Cumming