Spycatcher by Matthew Dunn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Apparently Matthew Dunn was a real life MI6 agent, involved in dozens of successful missions and (despite a reminder that "Medals are never awarded to modern MI6 officers") Dunn was personally commended for his actions on one mission that was "so significant that it directly influenced the successful conclusion of a major international incident.*"
Does this lead to a more realistic spy thriller? Decidedly not.
I mean, on one hand, the various spy agencies actually do what they're supposed to do. MI6 and CIA do human intelligence**. NSA does cryptography.*** On the other hand, Will, the intelligence officer in question, wantonly slaughters dozens of Iranian operatives (many of them in central park, no less) not to mention operatives from a bunch of other countries as well. Somehow, I think if this were an actual day in the life of an MI6 field agent we would be reading about them in the press somewhat more frequently.****
The writing is dreadful. Lots of paragraphs that are structured like, "Will did this thing. Will did this other thing. Will knew that this implausibly detailed thing would happen because of his time as a field agent in Prague in 1997." The dialogue is equally stilted and dull.
I know a hallmark of the spy novel is the globetrotting, but in this book it was downright excessive. Will zips back and forth between 3 or four countries keeping ducks in a row and checking in on people. Characters randomly demand meetings in various and sundry other European cities. Clearly in the universe of this book, you don't have to arrive at the airport 2 hours early, because if you did, Will would have spent the entire length of the plot sitting in a waiting room. Furthermore, none of the cities visited have any real personality--all the action could have happened in one country and the story would not have suffered one bit.
For all this, the book moves very swiftly. The tension kicks in on the first page and doesn't really let up until the end. It was enjoyable to read, even if, in retrospect, it wasn't very good.
* Source: his author bio on the back cover.
** And, to be fair, the mission is to recruit an operative, which I gather is fairly realistic.
*** None of this Halle Barry in a bright orange bikini bull$#^&.
**** "Our source was the New York Times."
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