The Seeds of Treason by Ted Allbeury

First published in Great Britain in 1986; published by Dover on November 6, 2017

Jan Massey wants to be understood, so he agrees to tell his story to a reporter from the BBC. The interview takes place in his home in a remote part of Spain. Massey is a former MI6 agent who committed an indiscretion. The novel is his story.

Massey ran the Berlin office for MI6 after the war, a life marred only by a brief disastrous marriage until he met Anna Kolkov. Like Massey, she has Polish roots. Her husband, Alexei Kolkov, is a KGB officer in Berlin, which makes Massey’s affair with Anna rather dangerous. It’s also a bit unconvincing, since there seems little beyond their Polish roots to make them fall in love at first sight or to make Massey behave so impetuously. We are given to understand that Slavic passions are to blame, but the affair happens too quickly and too deeply to make me think that Massey would be such a fool. In any event, the affair gets Massey into a pickle before the novel reaches its midway point.

As the title suggests, traitors abound in The Seeds of Treason. Massey is getting information from a KGB agent named Kuznetsov who is, to some degree, a traitor to Russia, and from a greedy French spy who seems to be betraying everyone he can. Andrew Johnson, a member of the British military who is handling signals intelligence in Berlin under Massey’s watch, decides he’ll be more appreciated by the Russians than the British. He thinks his prostitute girlfriend will even like him better if he’s a Russian hero, but the girlfriend is also prepared to betray anyone who doesn’t pay her enough.

And then there’s an NSA mathematician/codebreaker named Jimbo Vick who isn’t knowingly a traitor, but chats without discretion when he’s in bed with his beautiful girlfriend. As with Massey, love is the source of betrayal. But it is Massey who is the biggest fish in the pond, and a great catch for the KGB if they can use his affair with Anna against him.

Ted Allbeury writes in a low-key, matter-of-fact style, a nice change from the hysteria that pervades so much American spy fiction. The novel lives up to its title by explaining how three different people become traitors, although Vick’s story, at least, seems to be thrown in to provide a third example. Vick’s story might be the most credible of the three but he plays a relatively small role in the story. The most convincing character development is given to Johnson. Whether or not his sudden decision to seek appreciation from the Russians that he can't get from the British is believable, he's such a self-centered creep that the reader will readily see him as someone who would betray his country.

Massey is a more likable character than either Johnson or Vick and, if I didn’t necessarily find his betrayal to be credible, I did appreciate Allbeury’s effort to make him sympathetic. Allbeury makes the point that when a government labels someone a traitor, its first order of business is to paint him as deplorable in all aspects of life, because the government can’t have people understanding why someone might betray the government or, even worse, supporting the betrayer. Not all traitors are deplorable, particularly when they betray a country that isn't your own. That's the lesson Allbeury tries to teach in The Seeds of Treason, and I think he does so successfully.

The novel’s ending seems realistic. This is the only Allbeury novel I’ve read (it seems to the third that Dover has returned to print), so I don’t have much basis for comparison, but I wouldn’t rank Allbeury with John le Carré or Len Deighton or Gerald Seymour, simply because those masters of British spy fiction are justly known for gripping stories and compelling characters. I would instead compare Allbeury to Clive Egleton, who wrote British spy novels that were pleasurable if a bit unexciting.

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Red Swan by Peter T. Deutermann

Published by St. Martin's Press on August 22, 2017

A new CIA operative, Melanie Sloan, is recruited to a mission that asks her to become intimate with the chief of China’s Ministry of Security Services. Preston Allender, a consulting psychiatrist for the CIA, has selected Melanie and one of his female associates trains her in the art of seduction. That sort of thing happens all the time in spy novels, but P.T. Deuterman makes the set-up seem credible … or credible enough that I happily bought into it for the sake of the story.

About a third of the way into the novel, a trap gets sprung and the story takes a twist, one I haven’t seen before in the many spy novels I’ve read. Kudos to Deutermann for his cleverness. But the story doesn’t stop twisting until it reaches its end. The consequences that follow from Allender’s scheme set up the remainder of the novel.

Red Swan also differs from most spy novels in the way that Allender’s scheme backfires, not because it is unsuccessful, but because it is so successful that it has political ramifications. Heads must roll and Allender’s head is most convenient. The political and bureaucratic aspect of the novel is sharper than most American spy novels manage to convey. But again, the reader sees only the tip of a political struggle that will gain depth at the plot moves forward, entangling the CIA’s director and its top two deputies, as well as a Congresswoman and a slew of American and Chinese spooks.

Allender is a character I would like to meet again. He’s known as Dragon Eyes because his yellow eyes are unusually intense, an attribute he put to good use as the CIA’s chief interrogator before his retirement. He also has a preternatural ability to anticipate what someone is about to say, a talent he uses to convince people that he can read their minds — and maybe he can, in a limited sense. An interrogation scene at the end of the novel is very cool. All of that makes Allender an interesting character without taking him too far over the top, as so many recent thrillers have done with their protagonists.

Red Swan is a fun novel. The plot kept me guessing about which purported were really good guys and which apparent bad guys were actually the enemy. That's what a spy novel should do. Low-key action keeps the story moving but I was engrossed by the puzzles that torment the key players. Deutermann writes in the confident voice of a seasoned author. If this is the start of a series, I look forward to the next installment.

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The Good Assassin by Paul Vidich

Published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on April 18, 2017

“Evil does not betray you” is the theme of The Good Assassin. Like all good spy novels, betrayal is at the novel’s heart. Betrayals pop up at regular intervals as the story moves forward, taking many forms.

The Good Assassin takes place five years after An Honorable Man. George Mueller, now retired from the CIA, is sent to Cuba in 1958 as an “outsider” to take a reading on Toby Graham, a CIA agent with whom Mueller is acquainted. It is feared that Graham might be unduly sympathetic to Castro’s revolution (as opposed to the Batista dictatorship that the CIA clandestinely supports), and that Graham might be funneling weapons provided by the CIA to Castro rather than Batista.

Mueller is met and instantly disliked by the FBI’s man in Havana, Frank Pryce. He’s also disliked by Graham, with whom he has a dark history that includes a woman who is also a key character.

Cuba in 1958 is not a safe place to be unless you’re Ernest Hemmingway. The story places Mueller in jeopardy from Castro’s rebels and Batista’s troops, but danger may also be lurking closer to home. Mueller has plenty of things to worry about in this relatively brief but captivating story.

Is Graham a traitor? Or is he simply a realist who follows orders but complains about the hypocrites who issue them? Graham is clearly tired of “the persistent contemplation of evil,” an occupational hazard that “weakens the soul.” If he is a traitor, what should be his fate? In the game of espionage, the novel suggests, it is impossible to separate the white hats and the black hats. There are only shades of gray. There are no innocents, no souls untainted by corruption.

Paul Vidich handles those themes adeptly, as he did in An Honorable Man. The apparent simplicity of the story masks its depth. The novel ends in ambiguity, and while that’s how most things end, readers who like stories to wrap up neatly might be affronted by the lack of clear answers. I think the ending fits the story and its themes.

I am drawn to spy fiction in part because of the moral questions that characters so often confront, at least when the themes are deeper than “patriotic Americans kill bad people.” Vidich confronts moral issue in a thoughtful way. The Good Assassin is not as surprising as An Honorable Man, but Mueller continues to be a surprising, morally complex character.

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A Single Spy by William Christie

Published by St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books on April 25, 2017

“We gather information by many means, but a single spy in the right place and at the right moment may change the course of history.” With that encouragement, a 17-year-old Russian boy named Alexsi is sent to Germany, where it is envisioned that he will spend years rising to a position that will allow him to uncover great secrets for the benefit of the Soviet Union.

A Single Spy begins as Alexsi, struggling to survive, joins a group of Shahsavan tribesmen, nomads who roamed between Iran and Azerbaijan until the Soviet army began to do serious border patrol. Escaping a Soviet ambush in 1936, Alexsi, at the age of sixteen, is again on his own. Alexsi speaks Russian, German, and Farsi, among other languages, and is improbably literate, which makes him attractive to the NKVD. Like it or not, Alexsi becomes a spy.

Alexsi’s first task is to infiltrate a group that opposes Stalin. To do that, he must take advantage of a girl he knew in the orphanage where he spent part of his youth. That gives William Christie an opportunity to write scenes that flash back to the corrupt and inhumane setting of a Soviet orphanage. Other flashbacks illustrate Alexsi’s pre-orphanage years and explain how Alexsi later came to be living with Shahsavan tribesmen.

In the present, Alexsi serves the Soviets while pretending to serve the Germans in Berlin and Tehran, eventually stumbling onto a plot that may indeed change the course of history. While the plot might be a bit farfetched, that’s not unusual in modern thrillers, and Christie sold me on the story’s credibility.

Alexsi isn’t a complex character and some of the other characters are little more than stereotypes, but that’s common in a thriller that depends on plot more than characterization. The plot earns points for departing from the mold for most spy stories. It also earns points for being smart. Not brilliant, but smart.

The focus on a Russian from the Middle East who infiltrates the Germans during World War II is something I haven’t seen before, and I’m always happy to find a spy novel that isn’t just a variation of stories that the masters of espionage novels have already told. The story moves quickly, particularly in the action scenes that bring the novel to its finish. The themes of betrayal on which all spy fiction depends are sharply developed. Shortcomings of characterization notwithstanding, A Single Spy is a winning contribution to the genre of spy fiction.

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A Divided Spy by Charles Cumming

Published by St. Martin's Press on February 14, 2017

A Divided Spy is the final book in the Thomas Kell trilogy. It builds on the death of Kell’s girlfriend, Rachel Wallinger, and makes occasional reference other to key events in the earlier novels, but it can easily be read as a standalone. However, the reader will likely appreciate the depth of the characters more fully with the benefit of insights provided by the first two novels.

At 46, Thomas Kell has left behind his dangerous days as a spy. Since Rachel’s murder in Istanbul, Kell has gone out of his way to avoid former colleagues at MI6. Kell would like to seek vengeance against Alexander Minasian, the man he holds responsible for Rachel’s assassination, but he has almost resigned himself to injustice. Or at least, he is resigned to it until he learns that Minasian has been spotted at a resort in Egypt.

Kell’s first step is to befriend Bernhard Riedle in Brussels. Riedle is Minasian’s jilted lover. Perhaps Kell can use Riedle to set up Minasian … but who is setting up whom? As is common in spy novels, trust is easily misplaced, leaving the reader to puzzle out the intrigue.

The other plot development involves Shahid Khan, who is returning to England (his birthplace and a land he now views as evil) to carry out a mission. Kell learns, indirectly and incompletely, that a terrorist plot against London might be afoot, and that soon becomes the focus of Kell’s investigation — to the limited extent that his boss, who doubts the authenticity of Kell’s source, will allow him to do anything at all. Of course, the spy who ignores his boss in order to do what he believes to be right is a time-honored theme of spy fiction, and Kell fits within that mold.

Modern spy novels often feature ISIS terrorists while Cold War spy novels reliably focused on Russians. It’s unusual to find a novel that includes both, but Charles Cumming manages to merge them deftly.

Much of the tension in A Divided Spy comes from uncertainty as to whether Kell is being played and, if so, by whom. The battle of wits between Kell and Minasian never quite enters Le Carré territory, but it is both convincing and engaging. The novel’s strength, in fact, is its portrayal of two spies who, while separated by ideology, are fundamentally similar people — a theme Le Carré executed to perfection and that Cumming handles with aplomb.

Cumming’s exploration of the mentality of a spy is really an exploration of anyone who deceives. Telling a constant stream of lies, whether for personal gain or to advance a government’s interests, changes a person’s nature, prevents him from being true to himself. People who care about the truth (people who are not sociopaths) may be destroyed by living a lie, and that is seen to different degrees in both of the novel’s central characters.

At the same time, living with ambiguity, never knowing whether a source (or even a colleague) can be trusted, makes it hard to maintain a moral center. Trust can get you killed; an inability to trust can do the same. The moral conflicts that characterize the best spy fiction are particularly strong in the concluding chapters of A Divided Spy. The novel is a fine end to a series that, taken as a whole, is probably Cumming’s best work.

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