A Killing in Moscow by Clive Egleton

This is a repost of a review posted on Tzer Island in 2010. The book was first published in 1994. It has been out of print for some time, but has been published digitally by Endeavour Press as of September 8, 2016.

Clive Egleton's second Peter Ashton novel (first published in 1994) is better than his first (Hostile Intent). Ashton is given a stronger personality (the polite British version of abrasive) and he begins to have a life outside the office. The plot is less far-fetched and more interesting than the story in Hostile Intent in that A Killing in Moscow explores the relationship between the KGB and organized crime in post-Soviet Russia, arguing (through Ashton) that it doesn't matter whether the people on the other side are motivated by politics or greed if their actions jeopardize national security.

The novel begins with the execution of British businessman Colin Joyner and the prostitute he was entertaining in his Moscow hotel room. Peter Ashton, not quite trusted or simply disliked by those in power at SIS as a result of his actions in Hostile Intent, has been assigned to run Security and Technical Services where his access to top secret information is limited. Ashton, in Moscow to conduct a security audit, is sent by the British Embassy to assist the local police in the investigation of Joyner's death. This straight-forward task becomes more complicated when Ashton learns that a Russian woman employed as an Embassy secretary has been spying on the British Embassy official who monitors commercial transactions, and has been passing information to the prostitute who was found dead in Joyner's room. The novel follows Ashton as he puzzles out the relationship between the spy and Joyner. As in Hostile Intent, Ashton makes it his responsibility to keep the spy alive, creating the opportunity for some fast moving action scenes.

The pace in A Killing in Moscow is intense and Egleton's prose is more fluid than it was in Hostile Intent. The combination of intellectual intrigue and well written action scenes makes this a fun reading experience, and the ending is just wild.

RECOMMENDED

Hostile Intent by Clive Egleton

This is a repost of a review posted on Tzer Island in 2010. The book was first published in 1993. It has been out of print for some time, but has been published digitally by Endeavour Press as of June 19, 2016.

Hostile Intent is an old-fashioned spy story, Clive Egleton's first to feature SIS agent Peter Ashton. The well-paced novel begins with the assassination of Bob Whittle, a member of the British Army's Intelligence Corps, shortly after his meeting in Dresden with Galina Kutuzova, a GRU officer who reports to the KGB. Galina has been selling information to Whittle, while her partner, Yuri Rostovsky, has been peddling it to the Americans. Together they have profited by selling classified information to the French. Ashton is called in to to investigate Whittle's murder -- a task that proves difficult given the unwillingness of the Foreign Office to blame the Russians for anything in light of the Cold War's demise. The KGB kills Rostovsky and Galina flees to avoid attempts on her life while Ashton, trying to spook a GRU officer into contacting Moscow about Galina, pretends to be a double agent, risking his credibility with his own superiors. Egleton ratchets up tension as Ashton tries to find Galina before the KGB can locate and kill her.

Although Hostile Intent is carefully plotted, there are times when the story becomes difficult to believe. It was particularly hard to understand the continuing desire of the Foreign Office to ignore the true cause of Whittle's murder and to treat Galina as unimportant, given fairly obvious evidence that Galina and Rostovsky were selling highly classified material and that Galina still had information that would benefit the British. The nature of the information she finally reveals is also a bit over the top. A separate problem with Hostile Intent is that Egleton's writing style, while competent, needed improvement: Hostile Intent includes too many awkward sentences and Egleton too often resorted to cliche. Apart from those quibbles, Hostile Intent is a novel I would recommend to fans of espionage fiction. Ashton isn't quite in a league with George Smiley or Bernard Samson, but Egleton spins an entertaining story and peppers it with enough action to keep the pages turning.

RECOMMENDED

Death Throes by Clive Egleton

First published in 1994

True to the form established in the first two Peter Ashton novels (Hostile Intent and A Killing in Moscow), Death Throes begins with a death. A Russian using the name Valentin has contacted SIS and asked to meet with Ashton in Bulgaria. Ashton goes to Sofia to meet Valentin's contact, only to find him dead in his apartment. Ashton is soon taken prisoner by the KGB and interrogated about Valentin. Escaping and returning to London, Ashton finds himself caught between Valentin, who wants to sell secrets in exchange for money, and some members of the SIS who want to use him as a pawn to uncover Valentin's identity. The plot takes Ashton to Estonia for another meeting with Valentin (but is it the same Valentin?) and to Berlin, where a related story unfolds concerning a former KGB hit man who assassinates a neo-Nazi leader.

Intricate plotting is Egleton's strength. The story in Death Throes sometimes seems a bit convoluted -- I often found myself reviewing earlier chapters to refresh my memory concerning the many characters who come and go as the plot develops -- but it all comes together by the novel's end. The downside to this novel is Egleton's writing style, which is sometimes less than graceful. In addition, Egleton has a tendency to bombard the reader with information that isn't particularly useful, like the price SIS paid for a safehouse before the market fell. And while I understand the need to provide background information from past novels so that this one can stand alone (which it does), Egleton sometimes overdoes it. Do we really need to learn (again) that Harriet (Ashton's love interest) obtained "a good upper second in Geography at Birmingham University" before taking the various positions that led to her current employment with SIS?

Perhaps as a result of the digressions about educational backgrounds and job histories and real estate markets, Death Throes does not move with the same pace as the earlier novels (despite a few well written action scenes), and it suffers from the same occasional clunky prose that troubled me in Hostile Intent. There is also less development of Ashton's character in Death Throes than there was in A Killing in Moscow, although more attention is paid to Harriet and to Ashton's relationship with her. All told, I liked Death Throes, but not as much as Hostile Intent and certainly not as much as A Killing in Moscow.

RECOMMENDED

A Killing in Moscow by Clive Egleton

First published in 1994

Clive Egleton's second Peter Ashton novel is better than his first (Hostile Intent). Ashton is given a stronger personality (the polite British version of abrasive) and he begins to have a life outside the office. The plot is a bit less far-fetched and a bit more interesting than the story in Hostile Intent in that A Killing in Moscow explores the relationship between the KGB and organized crime in post-Soviet Russia, arguing (through Ashton) that it doesn't matter whether the people on the other side are motivated by politics or greed if their actions jeopardize national security.

The novel begins with the execution of British businessman Colin Joyner and the prostitute he was entertaining in his Moscow hotel room. Peter Ashton, not quite trusted or simply disliked by those in power at SIS as a result of his actions in Hostile Intent, has been assigned to run Security and Technical Services where his access to top secret information is limited. Ashton, in Moscow to conduct a security audit, is sent by the British Embassy to assist the local police in the investigation of Joyner's death. This straight-forward task becomes more complicated when Ashton learns that a Russian woman employed as an Embassy secretary has been spying on the British Embassy official who monitors commercial transactions, and has been passing information to the prostitute who was found dead in Joyner's room. The novel follows Ashton as he puzzles out the relationship between the spy and Joyner. As in Hostile Intent, Ashton makes it his responsibility to keep the spy alive, creating the opportunity for some fast moving action scenes.

The pace in A Killing in Moscow is intense and Egleton's prose is more fluid than it was in Hostile Intent. The combination of intellectual intrigue and well written action scenes makes this a fun reading experience, and the ending is just wild.

RECOMMENDED

Hostile Intent by Clive Egleton

First published in 1993

Hostile Intent is an old-fashioned spy story, Clive Egleton's first to feature SIS agent Peter Ashton. The well-paced novel begins with the assassination of Bob Whittle, a member of the British Army's Intelligence Corps, shortly after his meeting in Dresden with Galina Kutuzova, a GRU officer who reports to the KGB. Galina has been selling information to Whittle, while her partner, Yuri Rostovsky, has been peddling it to the Americans. Together they have profited by selling classified information to the French. Ashton is called in to to investigate Whittle's murder -- a task that proves difficult given the unwillingness of the Foreign Office to blame the Russians for anything in light of the Cold War's demise. The KGB kills Rostovsky and Galina flees to avoid attempts on her life while Ashton, trying to spook a GRU officer into contacting Moscow about Galina, pretends to be a double agent, risking his credibility with his own superiors. Egleton ratchets up tension as Ashton tries to find Galina before the KGB can locate and kill her.

Although Hostile Intent is carefully plotted, there are times when the story becomes difficult to believe. It was particularly hard to understand the continuing desire of the Foreign Office to ignore the true cause of Whittle's murder and to treat Galina as unimportant, given fairly obvious evidence that Galina and Rostovsky were selling highly classified material and that Galina still had information that would benefit the British. The nature of the information she finally reveals is also a bit over the top. A separate problem with Hostile Intent is that Egleton's writing style, while competent, needed improvement: Hostile Intent includes too many awkward sentences and Egleton too often resorted to cliche. Apart from those quibbles, Hostile Intent is a novel I would recommend to fans of espionage fiction. Ashton isn't quite in a league with George Smiley or Bernard Samson, but Egleton spins an entertaining story and peppers it with enough action to keep the pages turning.

RECOMMENDED