Random Things Tours: Our Man in Kuwait by Louise Burfitt-Dons

One of the many reasons the Middle East is so much upside down sometimes is due to the fact that, besides the colonial histories, the decades-long Cold War confrontations between the Soviet Union and the US and the allied powers on both sides. The chess of interests on both sides were often detrimental to the development of the countries used as an arena of deploying intelligence and military strategies, and abandoned as soon as a new set of interests prevailed. I will not enter too much in non-literary details of geopolitical nature, but literature can somehow remind us of causes and consequences of politicies that did not try to go further than short-term interests.

Our Man in Kuwait by Louise Burfitt-Dons enacts the very active nest of spies in Kuwait in the 1960, a reflection of the diffuse landscape of the international political alliances two decades after the end of the WWII. A possible Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, that happened in a completely different context few decades later, is endangering the unstable balance of powers in the region, but also outlines the deep fracture in the Arab unity - due to the game of powers but not only. 

Burfitt-Dons, whose well researched books I had the chance to previously review on the blog, wrote the book based on her own experiences, being born and brought in Kuwait where her father was Preventative Health Officer for the Kuwait Oil Company. Although sometimes the mindset reminded me of contemporary behaviors, the interactions between different expat couples and their dark secrets built up as a game of smoked mirrors are very captivating, in the thriller kind of way. The dialogues exhibit a sophistication and allusive language that raise even more questions about the character and intentions of the characters.

As I have a fascination and interest in both Cold War and the Middle East, Our Man in Kuwait was my read a choice for putting the topics and the region more into a larger mentalities context. 

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own