JUDAS 62
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4.4 • 45 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
*Icarus 17, the fourth book in the gripping Lachlan Kite thriller series is available to pre-order now!*
The second book in Charles Cumming’s gripping new thriller series surrounding BOX 88 – a covert intelligence organization that operates below the radar.
A spy in one of the most dangerous places on Earth…
1993: Student Lachlan Kite is sent to post-Soviet Russia in the guise of a language teacher. In reality, he is there as a spy. Top secret intelligence agency BOX 88 has ordered Kite to extract a chemical weapons scientist before his groundbreaking research falls into the wrong hands. But Kite’s mission soon goes wrong and he is left stranded in a hostile city with a former KGB officer on his trail.
An old enemy looking for revenge…
2020: Now the director of BOX 88 operations in the UK, Kite discovers he has been placed on the ‘JUDAS’ list – a record of enemies of Russia who have been targeted for assassination. Kite’s fight for survival takes him to Dubai, where he must confront the Russian secret state head on…
Who will come out on top in this deadly game of cat and mouse?
‘Judas 62 has all you could want from a tense, topical and intelligent spy thriller’ The Times Books of the Year
Reviews
‘Often hailed as the heir to John le Carré, Charles Cumming sets out his credentials as well as he ever has in Judas 62.’ The Times
‘The storytelling is first-rate, with all the minutiae of spycraft, sense of place and memorable supporting characters you could wish for’ Sunday Times
‘Tense and topical, this has all you could want from an intelligent contemporary spy thriller’ The Times, Books of the Year
‘The first Kite novel was excellent, but this is even better — an elegant exposition of what being a spy in the field actually feels like and the fear it can instil in even the most hardened operator. Superbly constructed, it never hurries, but evokes the world of espionage in a way the late John le Carre would have much admired’ Daily Mail
‘This sequel to Cumming’s stunning Box 88 is further proof that the author is one of the most adroit practitioners of the espionage art; the spycraft involving a covert intelligence group operating below the radar is nonpareil’ i
‘Some of the best writing around on the intricacies of spycraft and the high price agents pay for doing their job’ Sun
‘Intelligent, relevant and engrossing’ NB Magazine
‘Cumming adroitly portrays Kite’s inner life…nail-biting’ Financial Times
‘ Cumming knows his stuff and has done his research, giving the novel an admirably authoritative air’ The Literary Review
‘Charles Cumming knows how to write a good spy novel’ The Herald
‘The gold standard in espionage fiction’ Kirkus
About the author
Charles Cumming was born in Scotland in 1971. Shortly after university, he was approached for recruitment by the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), an experience that inspired his first novel, A Spy by Nature. He has written several bestselling thrillers, including A Foreign Country which won the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller and the Bloody Scotland Crime Book of the Year. He lives in London.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The main action of Cumming's ambitious sequel to 2021's Box 88 opens with the assassination in Connecticut of 77-year-old Saul Kaszeta, a former Russian general. Kaszeta "had been a source for BOX 88, a top-secret Anglo-American spy agency, for the final nine years of his military career." To Lachlan Kite, a career BOX 88 agent, this appears to be a reprisal hit carried out by the FSB, and it brings up a highly personal memory for Kite—his successful 1993 exfiltration of Yuri Aranov, a bioweapons scientist. Flashbacks provide a gripping account of Aranov's exfiltration, which launched Kite's BOX 88 career and earned him a lifelong enemy, Mikhail Gromik, a Russian intelligence officer who tried to prevent Aranov's defection. Kite realizes that both he and Aranov are in danger—their names are on the JUDAS list, "targeted for reprisal assassinations by Moscow." In a tour de force of tradecraft and suspense set in Dubai, the book's second half follows an intricate plan to ensure Aranov's safety and neutralize Gromik. Cumming does a superb job creating portraits of people, eras, and places. This powerful spy thriller should win the talented author new fans.
