Ascension by Oliver Harris

Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/Mariner Books on July 13, 2021

Ascension is the second Elliot Kane spy novel and the better of the two. It combines crime and suspense with themes of espionage. The result is an unusual but fascinating story that unfolds on a desolate island in the South Atlantic.

Oliver Harris informs the narrative with the history of Ascension Island, a place that few have visited and that even fewer want to see again. Ascension is governed by the British and is valued as a strategic jumping off point when the Brits find the need to invade the Falklands. The BBC maintains a relay station on Ascension. The European Space Agency maintains a rocket tracking station there, as did NASA for a period of time. The US has an air base on Ascension and the US Space Force uses it for whatever Space Force does. Thanks to Darwin, the arid volcanic island now has some trees, but Harris makes clear that it isn’t a place where anyone would want to spend a vacation. The novel gets its noir atmosphere from the island’s bleak nature and despondent residents.

The island has been used as a relay station for underwater cables for more than a century. Harris, who obviously engaged in meticulous research to support his novel, uses the cables as a jumping off point. A new transatlantic cable is being installed in Ascension. British intelligence wants to tap into it because there’s no such thing as privacy. Of course, the Brits don’t want the Americans to know what they’re doing.

Kathryn Taylor, who runs the South Atlantic desk for MI6, gives communications specialist Rory Bannatyne a cover story and sends him to Ascension to execute the cable-tapping plan. Taylor worked with Bannatyne when he was tapping a cable on Oman. Taylor bribed Bannatyne’s way out of trouble in Oman after he became uncomfortably close with some minors. Taylor never reported the incident to MI6, which is why Bannatyne is still available for the job. Unfortunately for Taylor, Bannatyne apparently commits suicide shortly after a young girl on Ascension goes missing.

Taylor sends Kane to Ascension to find out what happened to Bannatyne, whether he had anything to do with the missing girl, and whether it is safe to continue the cable intercept operation. Kane is undercover as an historian. Since there is only one flight to Ascension per month, Kane knows he will be there a while. When he arrives, however, he discovers that the hotel where he booked a room has closed, forcing him to take up residence in the home that was just vacated by the parents of the missing girl.

Kane’s investigation brings him into contact with a teenage boy who is suspected of murdering the missing girl. The boy’s mother is a General in a branch of the American military. After Kane befriends the General’s husband, a second girl goes missing. Kane is suspected of kidnapping the girl because he has befriended an unpopular family and, since he’s new on the island, he’s a convenient suspect. What seems to be an interesting crime story later changes gears as Kane discovers that the island is keeping secrets that may imperil the national security of Great Britain and its allies. Kane’s life and Taylor’s career are both threatened as suspense builds in England and on Ascension.

Harris’s intelligent plot is meticulously constructed. Its eventual destination will keep most readers guessing.

Taylor is the kind of character who is a fixture in espionage fiction, a spy who defies orders because she knows something is rotten and doesn’t trust her superiors to resolve the problem. Kane seems to be a more emotionally complex character in Ascension than he was in A Shadow Intelligence. Maybe he’s just growing on me. In any case, while most spy novels follow a well-traveled path, Harris has, for the second time, found a new story to tell. His second effort proves that he’s earning a position as a top shelf spy novelist.

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