This was a wonderful thriller full of twists a turns that kept me excited and intrigued throughout. It was been a while since I read a thriller that really kept me on my toes.

The Other Side of Trust by Neil Robinson is a credible thriller filled with facts about Iran.
The hero is a likeable character, and the plot moves along quickly. I can't recommend this book enough. Thank you to NetGalley and Burning Chair for this copy.

The Other Side of Trust by Neil Robertson This is my type of spy thriller. No bang-bang or beautiful women, instead a plot that progress nicely without a surprise thrown in at the end. Like many of the best espionage books it is not about saving the world but about the counter-espionage between the services played out in the shadows away from the breathless media. In this book Sebastian Friend of part of the British Secret Service is to find out who and why Iranian dissidents living in the US, the UK and Germany are killed as well as Iranian agents in Iran are all rolled up and eliminated. Where is the leak? Why were the dissidents killed and why was all this done? The book reminds me of the recently published Damascus Station by David McCloskey about an American agent tasked to do similar work in Syria. In both cases, it is mainly a solitary agent working in a land where one sticks out. And yet without super human heroics a less than satisfactory solution (to those in the story) takes place. Such is far more accurate than the agent hero saving the world and getting the girl. So if you prefer your espionage with a touch of thriller, in a novel setting without chase scenes this book might be for you.

This novel is about more than spy craft and espionage. It is about choosing your battles, making sacrifices, telling lies, hedging your bets and reserving the right to change your mind at any given point.

Seemingly unconnected, three deaths, each in a different country, launches this mystery thriller by Neil Robinson in The Other Side of Trust. Then American and British spy networks are compromised with multiple raids across Iran, alarming the British Secret Service. Sebastian Friend is the Intelligence Agent tasked to review the situation, given the three victims were all prominent Iranian émigrés and members of an underground dissident group known as The Tehran Committee. In his pursuit of the truth, Sebastian travels to Cambridge, then onto Tehran to comprehend this murky world of espionage and finds himself in grave danger. A classic English spy thriller which faithfully echoes the traditional espionage genre, makes this a four and a half star must read rating. With thanks to Burning Chair and the author, for an uncorrected advanced reader copy for review purposes. As always, the opinions herein are totally my own and freely given.