Rebecca’s father, Edward, scoots Sam Mitchell from Bangkok to London.

Boris Voikevich, only days past, was vehement; demanding Sam hole up on a remote farm in Northern China. Now, overnight almost, he’s agreeable to Sam’s return.

Is that reckless? Naïve even?

To those on the outside, maybe. With secrets to trade and never wanting to trust the British: they’ve a track record for failing to keep secrets, secret. Have those that command the clandestine activities of the Voikevich family found a broker?

As with Ben Carlyle's debut novel, ‘The Roads Chosen’, we delve into the inner workings of the intelligence services. But this time, laid bare, we become versed in how to move pieces on the board.

Set in 2008, a second and equally enthralling ‘trade craft’ thriller from Ben Carlyle. A more thought-provoking and more complex a tale, you’ll struggle to find.

A plot that runs over twelve months; starts in St Petersburg, moves to London, flies to Baku, sails to Volgograd, returns to London, sneaks to the Ural Mountains, races to Moscow and ends with further conspiracy in St Petersburg.

Here, we witness heated discussions in top floor offices, where time-served officers throw knowledge of previous undertakings on the table. Where they voice gut feelings. Where they unwrap the motives that drove KGB traitors into the arms of Western agencies. A real life understanding of the past days of SIS.

Rebecca breaks out from her shell. An evil killed Sam’s parents. Why? To flush Sam out. They would regret that. She’d kept her relationship with Sam a secret. If she’d not, would they have come for her? “Well, try taking me now. You’ll see just how angry with you my father is.”

Meet Philip Chaundler. He accepts, he is, in part, responsible for the death of Sam’s parents. “Ask Mitchell to sketch out his plan. I’ll keep it on my desk, as an op-request and have contractors assigned; that’ll allow all the paperwork to remain with me. I want this, Edward. And I don’t want that boy’s parents dying for nothing,”

Sit with Geoff when he’s asked to ‘dig-up-the-bones’ and find evidence of this ‘Fifth Column’. Become acquainted with ALP; his family is in banking. “Neither Edward nor I will break any law. Financial institutions will invest in the start-up.”
“Off the books?”

“This will remain on Phil’s desk as an op-request. We are within our rights to keep op-requests locked in a drawer until the need for a green light. We’ll not be breaking the rules.”

And, Harry steps up to the plate. “You can think in spirals, Harry. Which we’ll need if Mitchell is going to pull this off.”

We’re introduced to Vicky Spencer; a former Head of Research. “She remains the street-fighting, tub-thumper we all feared,” Geoff said, and offered a brittle look. “When I made to leave, she said, ‘Next time you drag your sorry backside halfway across the country, bring your bloody wife, you idle whelp.’”

Then, along comes Martha Denton; she has mud on her boots and the expertise you’ll need when an op-request falls off a desk in London, becomes a business start-up and is used to insert a known into a foreign country. “I’ll ask Rob to drive you. That way you can nip down, get a measure, and skip back to the road. Not have to worry about where to park the Batmobile.”

The procedural authenticity will convince you; you will put this down in sure knowledge of having spent time inside Britain’s intelligence services.

The novel closes with the reader holding their breath: crime bosses are on the rack, their millions about to disappear.

Can the conspirators now turn ‘Londongrad’ on its head and shake it?

Ben Carlyle brings what must be professional knowledge of intelligence work to the story. His investment in credible reasoning to justify the action that takes place pays off, giving a solid frame, in which this, his second, hugely elaborate plot plays out.