Red London by Alma Katsu

Published by ‎ G.P. Putnam's Sons on March 14, 2023

Red London takes place after Putin, weakened by his fiasco in Ukraine, is replaced by Viktor Kosygin, another former KGB agent turned dictator. The richest Russian oligarch in London, Mikhail Rotenberg, has fallen into disfavor with Kosygin. Kosygin is demanding money from all the oligarchs but he seems to want everything Mikhail has. Mikhail survives when a Russian hit team invades his swanky London mansion, but the message has been sent.

In addition to Kosygin, the CIA, MI6, and parties unknown want to know where Mikhaiil's money is hidden. Lyndsay Duncan, a CIA agent starring in her second novel, is in London to run a Russian double agent (a subplot that drifts away without resolution). As long as she’s in London anyway, the CIA assigns Lyndsay to cozy up to Mikhail’s British wife Emily. Lyndsay finds it easy to infiltrate Emily’s circle of friends, as the circle is practically nonexistent. Apart from sending her to charity lunches that signal Mikhail’s standing among London’s elite, Mikhail shields his wife from the outside world. He only allows her to take their two kids on playdates where she can socialize with the judgmental wives of oligarchs. The British, including Emily’s parents, regard Russians as untrustworthy people who are ruled by “messily violent passions,” the antithesis of British Londoners who have eradicated passion from their very proper lives.

As gold diggers go, Emily is a reasonably sympathetic character. She comes from minor aristocracy. Maintaining the family estate is expensive and family wealth is dwindling. Emily knows that, unlike her siblings, she has average intelligence and no talent. If beauty is her only potential route to success, she might as well use it. Having caught Mikhail’s attention, she can’t find a practical reason to turn down a proposal from one of the world’s richest men. If he’s ruthless and a probable criminal in his business dealings, she doesn’t want to know about it. Emily might be a bit of a stereotype, but she is a stereotype with flesh. Sadly, she isn’t quite smart enough to understand that she will lose more than she will gain by bearing an oligarch’s children.

Lyndsay’s spy mission is complicated when she finds Emily keeping company with Dani Childs, a former CIA agent. Dani is working for a private company that hires former spooks. Dani also wants to get a handle on Mikhail’s wealth but she doesn’t know who hired the firm to obtain that information. Lyndsay also finds herself working with an MI6 agent who still carries a torch from the fling they had in Beirut. Those complications add spice to a modestly intriguing plot.

Lyndsay’s sympathy for Emily creates an interesting conflict between her duty to country (as her bosses see it) and her desire to help a woman who is stuck in a dangerous life. While Alma Katsu sprinkles in some gunfire as the predictable ending approaches, Red London is more a low-key spy/relationship novel than a thriller. Katsu makes token references to tradecraft but (apart from the occasional walkabout to expose tails) incorporates little into the story, depriving readers of the sense that they are reading about a field agent who has been trained at Langley rather than a bureaucrat who was told to do her best. Ultimately, the unchallenging plot and conventional ending of Red London are secondary to the relationships that give the novel its value.

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