Charles Cumming cannot write a bad novel. Thomas Kell is an excellent protagonist, an engaging hero to follow and root for. A Divided Spy is the third novel in this series, and brings it to a gripping close. Tense, expertly plotted and written, I very much enjoyed this. If you haven't read Cumming's fiction, yet, then you are definitely missing out. Very highly recommended.

All of his thrillers are fantastic! They are so real and so are the characters. I highly recommend any book by Charles Cumming.

Intelligent and well paced thriller

Kell is a former MI6 officer retired from the service and damaged by personal tragedy. In this book he’s tracking down a Russian agent he believes to be behind the murder of his girlfriend.

Now this might sound like the start of whizz bang all action thriller, but Charles Cumming’s style is much more thoughtful with rich depth to his characters and a slow burn. The story has loads of tradecraft detail for the espionage fan and Kell is a likeable and believable character.

I won’t giveaway the plot, but suffice to say there’s some twists and turns that keep your interest just when you think you ‘ve got the plotline sussed.

All in all an entertaining read that makes you want to read more of the Cummings canon.

I was given a copy of this book to review by the publisher, but wasn’t obliged to provide a positive review.

Published by St. Martin's Press on February 14, 2017

A Divided Spy is the final book in the Thomas Kell trilogy. It builds on the death of Kell’s girlfriend, Rachel Wallinger, and makes occasional reference other to key events in the earlier novels, but it can easily be read as a standalone. However, the reader will likely appreciate the depth of the characters more fully with the benefit of insights provided by the first two novels.

At 46, Thomas Kell has left behind his dangerous days as a spy. Since Rachel’s murder in Istanbul, Kell has gone out of his way to avoid former colleagues at MI6. Kell would like to seek vengeance against Alexander Minasian, the man he holds responsible for Rachel’s assassination, but he has almost resigned himself to injustice. Or at least, he is resigned to it until he learns that Minasian has been spotted at a resort in Egypt.

Kell’s first step is to befriend Bernhard Riedle in Brussels. Riedle is Minasian’s jilted lover. Perhaps Kell can use Riedle to set up Minasian … but who is setting up whom? As is common in spy novels, trust is easily misplaced, leaving the reader to puzzle out the intrigue.

The other plot development involves Shahid Khan, who is returning to England (his birthplace and a land he now views as evil) to carry out a mission. Kell learns, indirectly and incompletely, that a terrorist plot against London might be afoot, and that soon becomes the focus of Kell’s investigation — to the limited extent that his boss, who doubts the authenticity of Kell’s source, will allow him to do anything at all. Of course, the spy who ignores his boss in order to do what he believes to be right is a time-honored theme of spy fiction, and Kell fits within that mold.

Modern spy novels often feature ISIS terrorists while Cold War spy novels reliably focused on Russians. It’s unusual to find a novel that includes both, but Charles Cumming manages to merge them deftly.

Much of the tension in A Divided Spy comes from uncertainty as to whether Kell is being played and, if so, by whom. The battle of wits between Kell and Minasian never quite enters Le Carré territory, but it is both convincing and engaging. The novel’s strength, in fact, is its portrayal of two spies who, while separated by ideology, are fundamentally similar people — a theme Le Carré executed to perfection and that Cumming handles with aplomb.

Cumming’s exploration of the mentality of a spy is really an exploration of anyone who deceives. Telling a constant stream of lies, whether for personal gain or to advance a government’s interests, changes a person’s nature, prevents him from being true to himself. People who care about the truth (people who are not sociopaths) may be destroyed by living a lie, and that is seen to different degrees in both of the novel’s central characters.

At the same time, living with ambiguity, never knowing whether a source (or even a colleague) can be trusted, makes it hard to maintain a moral center. Trust can get you killed; an inability to trust can do the same. The moral conflicts that characterize the best spy fiction are particularly strong in the concluding chapters of A Divided Spy. The novel is a fine end to a series that, taken as a whole, is probably Cumming’s best work.

RECOMMENDED

I have read a couple of Charles Cumming's other books before this one, but none of the first two books in the Thomas Kell series. There are plenty of references to things in Kell's past, but Cumming did a fair job of easing new readers into things.
Thomas Kell is not a super hero without flaws which makes the plot a lot more interesting than stories with spies who know everything about weapons, the next move of their brilliant adversary etc.
It took me some time to get into this book - about 100 pages or so - but then I was hooked. Two seemingly completely separate subplots are slowly vowen into one and then apart again, which shows Cumming's brilliance in the genre.
The slow start costs the fifth star, but Cumming writes brilliant spy novels that all fans of the genre will be entertained by - I know that I was.

Saving the best for last. Charles Cumming tied up all the important ends in a grand way that was ultimately satisfying giving Thomas Kell his due. Continues to be my favorite espionage writer.