The Seventh Floor

Artemis Procter is back with a vengeance.

CIA officer Sam Joseph is sent to Singapore to meet with a Russian spy, who has offered up some juicy information. However, the meet goes wrong and Sam is captured and interrogated, while the Russian goes missing. His chief, Artemis Procter, is made a scapegoat for the catastrophe and is drummed out of the service by the new Director, someone who has little love for Procter's methods. However, when Sam is traded back in a spy swap, and appears at Procter’s Florida home months later, he reveals what he had succeeded in keeping secret - there is a Russian mole hidden deep within the upper levels of CIA.

And so Procter and Sam, in their own inimitable style, embark on a mole-hunt, one which quickly indicates that the mole is a long-time friend and colleague of Procter. But which one? In the course of their private op, the pair are faced with past events (some from the first book, Damascus Station), old feuds, and new threats. As the Russians learn of her hunt, their chief spymaster takes increasingly violent steps to shut her down.

This book is possibly the best yet in the adventures of Artemis Procter. There's less talk and more action than in the previous books, and it sees a welcome return to the two favourite people from book 1. Artemis Procter is full and centre as she battles both the CIA and the Russians, facing an increasingly hostile group of opponents. Fans will know she's feisty, uncompromising, unruly, and sexy, but here we see just how loyal and unwavering she is when it comes to having her friends' backs. We see just how independent she is, her skill at planning on-the-hoof, and her resilience in the face of disaster, We also see the side of her that loves her work, and mourns for the life she lost.

Apart from Sam and Artemis, we meet a fine cast of characters, from a long-time frenemy, to a cold-blooded spymaster, and a quirky mole-hunter. Oh, and alligators.

Inevitably, the book will be compared, at some level, to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, as a mole hunt thriller, but that's unfair. Smiley never fought alligators or toted a shotgun.

Heartily recommended.

Without a doubt, this third instalment is the best to date in a series that gives you piercing insights into the CIA and the nebulous world of espionage. Artemis Procter has taken one for the team. Not through choice, Procter has been singled out as a bad egg and been kicked unceremoniously into the long grass, never to show her face again. But Procter isn’t about to draw her pension. The CIA has a mole and Procter will find it, after all, what’s she got to lose, her sanity, her life?

The dialogue, especially the exchanges with Procter are razor sharp and often just plain hilarious. In trying to find the traitor, the narrative takes you deep into the American back rooms of power and presents a picture not only of greed and self interest but of broken trust and misplaced loyalties.

A scintillating read and one that brings the spy genre into the dazzling limelight.

I read a copy of The Seventh Floor through NetGalley and am leaving this review voluntarily.