Real spies are not exactly James Bond. Some of them, maybe, probably, who knows, but otherwise, they can be as big as a failure as any other human facing the challenge of a simple riddle.
Thomas Dylan is one of those unusual spies that not only got rejected by the famous MI6 - Queen´s Secret Intelligence Service - but once in a mission for the less exciting Defense Intelligence Service failed more than once.
Thomas Dylan (not Dylan Thomas, for the connoisseurs) is coming from the cold of the Cold War and his missions are tailored accordingly. The enemies are from the other side of the curtain, some of them bearing such exotic nicknames as Samovar. In the name of the beautiful Briths-American collaboration, Dylan is sent to Brazil to recover a submarine interrogator stolen from the US Navy. Not necessarily accidentally, he has to deal with the craziness - close to brothel kind of ambiance - of the South America in the late 1970s, where former Nazis are in the big business as nothing happened and the dictatorships are supported with $$ because it might stabilize the region. At the time, this region was as eventful as the Middle East of nowadays.
I liked the way in which the story is told - by the agent Thomas Dylan - , on a very phlegmatic sarcastic yet realistic tone. The sentences are short describing situations and events in a very cinematic way. When the situation on the ground looks so complicated, you need at least clear sentences to figure out what it is all about. This writing style also brings a healthy note of certain realism and honesty to the story.
For any lover of spy novels, Awakening of Spies by Brian Landers has a good offer to make: action, surprising characters and turn of events, secrets of spies, in the cold style of British keepers of secrets.
Rating: 3.5
Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange of an honest review
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