When you put together a diplomatic translator, a post-Cold War drama that involves just another Russian-led sabotage attempt, plus some romance in the shadow of political dramas, you got my full attention. If the post-Cold War struggle for influence and power is constantly featured in well written political thrillers, the character of the translator is almost absent. I can hardly remember a novel I actually liked that assigns any front row to a translator character.
Therefore, a novel with this complex profession in the title sounded as a perfect time investment. The Translator by Harriet Crawley is an ice breaker but more than that. Set on the background of an expected sabotage of the undersea Internet cable by a Russia lead by a president Serov, the translators are playing the roles of the saviors usually attributed to spies in the Cold War novels. Actually, they are supposed to save the free world. Clive and Marina, rekindling an old love, are ready to give up everything for sparing the world from a dramatic communication sabotage.
The author is well familiar with the post-Soviet world, as she lived for 20 years in Moscow and is a fluent Russian-speaker. But besides the good knowledge of the world she is writing about, she is as well versed in the art of the political thriller, building up the right amount of tension and the suspense as the action is speeding up as the clock is ticking louder and louder. Will the sabotage succeeed in the end or the translators are really about to save our old European world as we know it?
A recommended read to any lover of political thrillers and international intrigues.
Rating: 4 stars
Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own
Thanks for the blog tour support x
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