In the Company of Spies by Stephen Barlay

First published in 1981; published digitally by Endeavour Press on February 15, 2016

First published in 1981, In the Company of Spies is a cold war novel that fits comfortably on the shelf of second-tier novels that entertain fans of the spy genre. A Hungarian by birth, Stephen Barlay escaped from the Soviet invasion (and his likely arrest) in 1956. A journalist in Hungary, Barlay wrote both fiction and nonfiction in English while living in Great Britain. In the Company of Spies was, perhaps fittingly, produced as a made-for-TV movie in 1999.

The novel is set in 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis. Helmut Rust gets a message from a Russian who dies during its delivery. The coded message tells Rust, who was forced out of the CIA, that his father wants out of Russia. When Rust makes his way to Russia, he learns that smuggling his father out of Russia is no longer the mission that awaits him.

Rust’s life is complicated by a love triangle, a brother in a wheelchair who works for the CIA, and friends who might be enemies. This is the typical fare of spy novels and, if Barlay doesn’t take the story to the lofty levels attained by the genre’s best writers, he nevertheless gives Rust enough depth to instill sympathy for his predicament. Most of the novel’s twists are not entirely unexpected but the story does deliver a nice double-twist at the end. In fact, the last pages and Rust’s reaction to the surprises are the best part of the story.

A suitable mixture of action and intrigue keeps the story in steady motion. Barlay’s prose is uninspired and occasionally awkward, but no more so than some contemporary writers of second tier espionage novels (a few of whom have achieved bestseller status for reasons that are apparently unrelated to writing ability).

The great insight of In the Company of Spies, I think, is its insistence that Americans who have never experienced an oppressive government have no right to judge the victims of oppression -- people who, motivated by fear or survival, do things that are contrary to the interests of human rights or world peace. To the extent that the novel tries to deliver profound political insights, I think it is less successful. International political issues, particularly in a time of crisis, are more complex than Barlay is able to convey.

The novel builds on the belief that Kennedy betrayed Cuban-Americans by abandoning the quest for Cuba’s “liberation” in exchange for Khrushchev’s agreement to remove missiles from Cuba. Regardless of where the reader comes down on what is no longer a hot-button issue, In the Company of Spies exploits the time and setting in a way that spy fiction fans should enjoy.

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Condor in the Stacks by James Grady and The Little Men by Megan Abbott

MysteriousPress.com is publishing (in digital form) a series of stand-alone stories by popular crime authors in which books, bookstores, libraries, or manuscripts play a central role.  I don't usually review individual short stories, but I'm making an exception for the Bibliomysteries series because the concept is interesting and the authors are well known.

"Condor in the Stacks" by James Grady was published digitally on February 23, 2016.

Condor fans know from reading Last Days of the Condor that the Condor, sometimes known as Vin, was heavily medicated and given a (supposedly) safe and undemanding job at the Library of Congress, sorting books into bins for reshelving and recycling. Vin thinks pretty much all books should be saved. That attitude makes him well suited for the Bibliomysteries series.

Vin tries to kick back his sedation long enough to help a library employee named Kim who thinks she is being stalked. Meanwhile, he tries to solve the puzzle of why he packed seven coffins full of books for recycling but nine coffins are being hauled away.

The plot is beyond far-fetched and it isn’t fully developed. I'm not sure it even makes sense. Still, it entertained me. I liked the story, but not nearly as much as I liked the last Condor novel, which had a depth of character and intricacy of plot that can be difficult to achieve in a short story. I probably would not recommend this story to readers who did not read and enjoy Last Days of the Condor.

The text of the story mentions or alludes to about a dozen authors. James Grady acknowledges them at the end, which is helpful for readers who recognize, but can’t quite place, an allusion. I am one of the readers who benefitted from reading the acknowledgements.

Judging from Amazon reviews, some readers are turned off by Grady’s writing style, which is far from conventional. Odd punctuation, sentence fragments, and stream of consciousness sometimes take over the narrative. The frenzied, off-kilter style reflects Vin’s shaky mental status. I like it for that reason but I realize that it puts off readers who are looking for straight-forward prose. If you are one of those, be warned that this might not be the story for you.

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"The Little Men" by Megan Abbott was published digitally on September 15, 2015

In 1953, Penny went to Hollywood to pursue her dream of fame. Like most wannabe actresses, she found a less satisfying life that the one she pursued. At night, she consoles herself with the books that came with a surprisingly affordable bungalow that she rents in the canyon. Her neighbors soon reveal that the rent is affordable because nobody wants to rent the bungalow where the bookseller killed himself. Or did he?

This is a story of bad dreams and spooky nocturnal noises and shadows on the walls. A mystery with the flavor of a horror story. Like Psycho, the story asks the reader to divine the secrets of a spooky place. Are the horrors that Penny experiences real or imagined?

A well-crafted story, “Little Men” creates a visceral atmosphere and gives flesh to its characters. The story resolves with a couple of unexpected twists. Most of the stories in this series have been quite good, and this one is no exception.

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The Mulberry Bush by Charles McCarry

Published by Grove Atlantic/Mysterious Press on October 27, 2015

The early chapters of The Mulberry Bush are the story of an estranged father and son, told from the son’s perspective. The father was at one time a capable spy who angered (or embarrassed) the wrong people at Headquarters. When father and son reunite, the aftermath of their meeting gives the son a new purpose in life -- vengeance.

So begins the unnamed protagonist’s life as a spy, a career that he fashions on his own terms. Eventually he falls in love with Luz Aguilar, whose revolutionary/terrorist parents were killed by the police in Argentina. The protagonist believes that Luz can lead him to the Russians who control the Argentinians, but he also wants her help to pursue an agenda of his own.

The protagonist jets from Buenos Aires to Bogotá to Bucharest, playing the espionage game in his own way and aggravating his masters in the best tradition of spy fiction. Key characters include the protagonist’s stuffy superiors at Headquarters, a couple of Russians who may or may not want to betray their country’s secrets, a priest who once lived in Russia, and a surgeon who was close to Luz’ father and who is now Luz’ friend/protector. All of these characters have secrets that the protagonist must ferret out if he is to survive.

Many of the usual espionage plot threads are present in The Mulberry Bush. Are the apparent traitors really traitors or are they double agents? Are agents accused of being traitors because they really are or because the other side wants to destroy them with the weapon of suspicion? Is there a mole at Headquarters? Was Luz’ father working for the Russians, for Headquarters, or only for himself? The reader’s challenge is to work out what’s going on with the Russians, the Argentinians, and the Americans while getting a handle on just where the protagonist is headed.

Tension builds slowly and steadily as the story nears its climax. Charles McCarry isn’t a writer who needs to use artificial means (like the single-sentence paragraphs and two page chapters favored by many modern thriller writers) to move the story at a good pace. He writes vivid prose and creates complex, convincing, multifaceted characters. My only two complaints are that (1) the protagonist’s initial goal is clear but his plan for achieving it is ill-defined, leaving me wondering what he really hoped to achieve, and (2) the two Russians each disappear from the story in a way that left me unsatisfied. In the end, those qualms are minor. There was more than enough intrigue in The Mulberry Bush to ensure my rapt attention, and the plot twists kept me off-balance, as a spy novel should.

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Palace of Treason by Jason Matthews

Published by Scribner on June 2, 2015

Dominika Egorova, last seen departing for Moscow in Red Sparrow, is again the focus of Palace of Treason. She continues to work as a mole for the CIA, motivated by some awful things she sees in the SVR, where she was trained in twin arts of espionage and seduction. Will she once again break all the rules by sleeping with her CIA handler, Nate Nash? Do you need to ask?

The preliminary story involves an Iranian nuclear engineer who is of interest to both the Russians and the Americans. That story gives Nate and Dominika the opportunity to reunite.

About a third of the way into the story, a new character, embittered by the American intelligence establishment's failure to feed both his ego and his bank account, decides to pass secrets to the Russians. One of those secrets might expose Dominika, leading to a series of chase scenes, fights, and other standard spy thriller fare.

If you liked Red Sparrow (which I did), you will probably like Palace of Treason, simply because it is a similar novel. It blends tradecraft and action with a reasonable degree of character building. Jason Matthews isn't John le Carré or Len Deighton, but he tells a story that is credible and reasonably suspenseful. Interestingly, his Russian villains are drawn with greater detail and complexity than his whitebread American characters.

Palace of Treason is a bit wordier than it needs to be. The novel's sex scenes (including a rather mild encounter with Putin) lack the mature touch of a seasoned author. I could live without Dominika seeing colorful auras around the people she encounters and I still don't understand the point of putting a recipe at the end of every chapter for some meal that appeared during the course of the chapter, a contrivance that forces his characters to eat constantly. Those reservations aside, I continue to enjoy the series. Matthews has a knack for storytelling. For a spy fiction fan, the tradecraft alone makes the novel worthwhile.

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Snow Wolf by Glenn Meade

First published in 1995; published in trade paperback by Howard Books (Simon & Shuster) on May 19, 2015

Jakob Massey died in 1953 while working for the CIA. His son William was told that Jakob committed suicide. Decades later, William finds hidden documents referring to an operation called Snow Wolf that cast doubt on the date, place, and circumstances of his father's death. William travels to Russia in the hope of learning the truth. He hears the story from Anna Khorev, a woman who blamed Stalin for her father's execution, her mother's suicide, and the ugly turns her life took as she entered adulthood.

Without giving anything away, I can safely say that Snow Wolf incorporates the ingredients of a fast-moving thriller. A fellow named Alex Slanski (a former OSS assassin who used the code name Wolf) is dropped into Russia by parachute. He has a mission. Anna goes along as his cover but is not told the details of his mission. Of course, half the Russian army chases Slanski and Anna through Estonia and Russia as they try to evade capture and carry out their mission. Those scenes are all fast-moving and credible.

A key player in the novel's second half is a KGB major named Lukin, personally charged by Lavrentiy Beria with finding Slanski and Anna. Lukin is a surprisingly admirable character, given the nature of his employment. Beria keeps a secret from Lukin that Lukin and reader discover late in the story. Another plot twist involves a decision by President Eisenhower to abort Slanski's mission after it is already underway. That decision sends Jakob Massey to Russia.

Snow Wolf is all about plot. The characterizations are nothing special. The writing is surprisingly tight given the novel's length. Although we learn the ultimate fates of Massey and Anna (as well as the mission's outcome) in the novel's early pages, Snow Wolf manages to generate a satisfying amount of suspense. Most of the intrigue involves Slanski and Lukin as they work toward their respective goals.

Some aspects of the story are not entirely convincing but I found it easy to suspend disbelief for the sake of enjoying a good story. The novel's core surprises are plausible and its internal logic is consistent. The ending -- Slanski's completion of his mission -- is a bit too easy, which is the novel's greatest weakness. This is nevertheless a strong, fast-moving thriller.

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