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Summary
Summary
From the internationally acclaimed, New York Times bestselling author of The Trinity Six, comes a compelling tale of deceit and betrayal, conspiracy and redemption
On the vacation of a lifetime in Egypt, an elderly French couple are brutally murdered. Days later, a meticulously-planned kidnapping takes place on the streets of Paris. Amelia Levene, the first female Chief of MI6, has disappeared without a trace, six weeks before she is due to take over as the most influential spy in Europe. It is the gravest crisis MI6 has faced in more than a decade. Desperate not only to find her, but to keep her disappearance a secret, Britain's top intelligence agentsturn to one of their own: disgraced MI6 officer Thomas Kell. Tossed out of the Service only months before, Kell is given one final chance to redeem himself - find Amelia Levene at any cost. The trail leads Kell to France and Tunisia, where he uncovers a shocking secret and a conspiracy that could have unimaginable repercussions for Britain and its allies. Only Kell stands in the way of personal and political catastrophe.
Author Notes
CHARLES CUMMING is the author of The New York Times bestselling thriller The Trinity Six, as well as others including A Spy by Nature and Typhoon. He lives with his family in London.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this audio edition of Cumming's thriller, narrator Jot Davies's crisp, stiff-upper-lip performance perfectly captures Thomas Kell, a former British agent who was unceremoniously dismissed from MI6 after two decades of service for his involvement in a torture scandal. But to his surprise, Kell's given a shot at reinstatement. All he has to do is find a missing person, the agency's first female chief, Amelia Levene, who went missing in France prior to her official appointment. Davis's characterizations are subtle but effective: a slightly softer delivery for females, an understated accent for French characters. His rendition of Amanda captures the character's sophisticated haughtiness, as well as her self-doubt, while his Kell remains unflappably British in his quest for answers and redemption. A St. Martin's hardcover. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Amelia Levene and Thomas Kell, once colleagues as MI6 field agents, have seen their careers move in opposite directions. Amelia is about to become the first woman to head the agency, leapfrogging ambitious but less talented male bureaucrats. Kell has been forced into retirement, scapegoated by those same bureaucrats in the wake of revelations and uproar about torture. Kell is recalled because Amelia abruptly takes a week's leave in the south of France and, even more abruptly, disappears into thin air. Kell's job is to find her. This plot synopsis is mere prelude. Cumming, once recruited to MI6, has fashioned a gripping story of conspiracy, the Arab Spring, MI6 politics, maternal love, and a man with a talent for the clandestine. Amelia and Kell are complex, engaging characters, and Kell's tradecraft will delight espionage lovers. The conspiracy might strain credulity a bit, but stranger things have happened in the Great Game, and Cumming's track record (The Trinity Six, 2011) ensures demand for this one.--Gaughan, Thomas Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
A JUMBLE of events across time and continents kicks off the new spy thriller "A Foreign Country," by the Scottish writer Charles dimming. Amelia, a young au pair, disappears in Tunisia in 1978, leaving behind a lovelorn seducer. Years later, an elderly French couple are murdered in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Soon after, a young man is abducted from a dark Paris street in a 20-second maneuver "as easy as lighting a cigarette." And Amelia, now the new head of M16, the British intelligence service, has gone missing during a sudden trip to the South of France. It is up to Thomas Kell, a spy disgraced in a torture scandal after 9/11, to track down the chief. "Find her and we can bring you in from the cold," a former colleague tells him. If the phrase, seems a sly tribute to John le Carré, well, it's not the only one. Shreds and patches from the master show up throughout, as in a subplot about a long-lost child, which echoes one from "Smiley's People." Or maybe I've been reading too many spy novels. They train you to see connections, after all, even ones that may not be there. "A Foreign Country" is silkily written, and more cool than hot. Cumming, whose earlier novels include the enthusiastically received "Trinity Six," describes exotic locales with detail and affection, and is relatively sparing in his use of bang-bang, at least until a big, gory Hollywood-ready finish. While this novel nods to the past, it's rooted firmly in the mess of our present. "A Foreign Country" describes today's wars and morally ambiguous tactics - including "passive rendition" and "outsourced torture" - with an acerbity that might make le Carré proud. Cumming is no knee-jerk liberal, and Kell, his chosen speechifier, argues that "too many people on the left" have blinded themselves to the high stakes, "interested solely in demonstrating their own good taste, their own unimpeachable moral conduct, at the expense of the very people who were striving to keep them safe in their beds." The psychic wounds of British complicity in the mistreatment of terror suspects are still fresh. But some things never change in the world of British spy novels. The Americans are violent blunderers. The French are so very wicked. And the British are sad but noble holdovers from a better time, tarnished by their association with icky us. GEOPOLITICS aside, this is a novel about identity. We change: seeing "King Lear" as a college student is interesting, but seeing it years later with your own child is shattering. Across pur experiences and transformations, however, the self runs through it all like a bright thread. Spies like Amelia and Kell, Cumming tells us, lose that thread. In the middle of a sleepless night, Kell reflects that "his entire personality had grown out of a talent for the clandestine; he could not remember who he had been before the tap on the shoulder at 20." By the end of the novel Kell has gotten not just a chance to get his old job back, but a shot at redemption as well. Given a ticking clock, a bad man and a question to answer, Kell must show that he can act effectively without trashing those principles he keeps talking about. Underneath all the jets and ferries, the heroic alcohol consumption, the cellphone SIM cards and computer hacking that make a spy thriller move, the real story in "A Foreign Country" is the quest to reclaim our better selves, the people we once thought we might be. John Schwartz is a national correspondent for The Times. His new memoir, "Oddly Normal," will be out this fall.
Kirkus Review
A deadly long-shot mission gives a disgraced secret agent a chance at redemption. Isolated pieces--the dissolution, in Tunisia a generation ago, of the marriage of Jean-Marc Daumal and wife Celine over his affair with nanny Amelia Weldon; the present-day murder of elderly Parisians Philippe and Jeannine Malot on a Cairo street; the kidnapping of a target nicknamed HOLST by one Akim Errachidi and his team--precede the introduction of dissolute Thomas Kell, waking up in a hotel room with another hangover eight months after his surgical dismissal, after two decades of service, from Britain's MI6. A call from his old pal, Jimmy Marquand, sobers Kell immediately. The new MI6 chief-designate, Amelia Levine, has gone missing before even assuming the job. Kell knew Amelia well, and he leaps at the chance to be back in the game. He checks files, Amelia's car and her room, noting that the signs indicate abduction. He questions veteran agents Bill and Barbara Knight, pictures of concern and cooperation with Kell...until he leaves, and their manner turns conspiratorial, and they hint at allegiances other than MI6. Using Amelia's Blackberry as a guide, Kell follows her movements over the previous two weeks. Cumming flashes back to Amelia for the same period; when she's found by Kell, it's just the beginning of a complicated cat-and-mouse game stretching back to the trio of prologue events and weaving together personal and political tangles. Cumming's sixth thriller (The Trinity Six, 2011, etc.) is smart and intricate, with a large cast of cool characters and an authentic feel. ]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Amelia Levene is about to become the first woman to run the British intelligence agency MI6 when she mysteriously disappears. Disgraced former officer Thomas Kell is recruited to find her. He quickly learns that she has not been kidnapped; she's hiding on purpose. What would motivate someone at the height of their career to give it all up? What he uncovers, with Levene's help, unveils a dark conspiracy that goes back years. VERDICT Cumming's sixth thriller (after The Trinity Six) simmers and crackles until the explosive finale. Where in other novels Kell would need the entire narrative to find Levene, he discovers her whereabouts almost immediately. That plot twist along with the surprises that follow make this a worthwhile read that will appeal especially to readers who appreciate John le Carre, Olen Steinhauer, and David Ignatius. [See Prepub Alert, 2/12/12; 100,000-copy first printing.] (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.