Charles Cumming, Typhoon.

I’m a huge fan of Charles Cumming’s novels. Typhoon, his latest, goes on sale today. I’ve been fortunate enough to read the UK version, which the author was kind enough to send my way.

I read A Spy by Nature in huge gulps, and I’ve always been fascinated by the trade craft of the spy business. I’ve faithfully watched MI:5 start to finish, all six seasons, witnessed the rise and fall of several main characters, all of whom I’ve loved and hated to see them go.

I’ve just started Typhoon, and hope to get a review up soon.

In the meantime pick up A Spy By Nature here.

Here are my thoughts on one of his other books:

A Spy By Nature by Charles Cumming

St. Martins Press

As far as spy novelists go there are a few writers who are without peer, John le Carré, Graham Greene just to name a couple. Since they had both worked in the spy business themselves at one point or another in their lives it leaves no question as to why they’re so good at writing the genre.

Mr. Cumming was a one point recruited to work for the SIS in London and eventually decided that writing a novel about the experience would be a better career path. We’re fortunate to have this novel published here in America and if this novel is a sign of things to come then you’re in for a treat as he’s written several other books including a sequel to ‘A Spy By Nature’ entitled ‘The Spanish Game’.

It’s been a while since a book from the spy genre has grabbed me so quickly and managed to get my attention night after night. This book is so smooth, so readable; you’ll be devouring it in 50 to 60 pages chunks. Reason being? Alec Milius is such a likeable character; identifiable to anyone who’s suffered through their 20’s and 30’s looking for the meaning of life.

You always wonder how a man can be recruited to work as a spy. Who does he know? Where do you go to apply? What do you need to know to be a spy? Alec doesn’t know anyone, his mother has a friend who recognizes something in him and before we know it he’s neck deep in the application process for SIS. I found this part of the book to be absolutely fascinating, riveting, and almost exhaustingly real. Alec finds that he can’t keep up, starts to lie, and even begins to think he’s going to get away with lying about his past. Foolishly enough he accepts another job offer with his mother’s friend shortly after SIS rejects him. The only other business that’s as murky as the spy game is the oil business. I was worried Cumming would bog the story down with heavy technical data and slow the process down to a dribble, but this is where the novel takes flight and I’m hard pressed to find another story like it, anywhere.

Alec is offered a job working for Abnex Oil, a company that’s researching oil drilling in risky parts of Central Europe, they have a competitor aptly called Andromeda which is run by a couple of shifty Americans (for some reason the name of the company reminded me of the Crichton novel). His job as it’s laid out to him is to give these Americans secret information, and to perform a little industrial espionage at the interests of the British government. He’s promised a job for another branch of the British Secret Service if he can complete this task successfully. So he takes the job with Abnex Oil, gets introduced to the Americans, a nice couple about his age who appear to be married. All is going well, he’s dropping off information, getting paid, and not a soul at Abnex knows what he’s up to. The story toggles back and forth between Alec’s own personal tug of war with doing the right thing, Queen and Country and all that, with hopes of bedding the American woman he’s selling secrets to. All the while a girl from his past haunts his dreams and he can’t seem to shake his guilt over breaking up with her years ago.

I couldn’t help by recognize the agony that Alec feels for himself as he realized he was just a pawn for the British government, that his time on the planet was being wasted as he slogged forward into nothing. Finding the right career, a place to hang your hat everyday isn’t what it used to be, it’s a revolving door of sorts and we’re raised to believe that we’ll all be bright shinning stars, when in fact the reality is much more banal and mundane and the hopes of success recognition and fame are slowly carved out of you as you endure the painful reality that surrounds you; work, sleep…and someday…death. Alec has developed incredible skills at realizing his own grave misfortune, that is, his inherent laziness combined with the off chance at a neat job with sexy underpinnings, a job he coveted, is nothing more than a golden noose which he willingly puts around his own neck.

Eventually Alec has a bad case of the willies and his conscious keeps him from carrying on with the fiction that defines his life. Finally the level of secrecy that he’s expected to maintain makes it impossible for him to carry on, but it’s worthy of the tension it creates for the reader. I’m actually shocked to have only just discovered this great writer, but I’m happy to report he’s written several other books. He’s a hit in England; let’s hope people catch on to him here.

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