Kennedy 35
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- £5.49
Publisher Description
A Financial Times Best Thriller of 2023
Veteran agent Lachlan Kite—“a spy for the 21st century” (Daily Mail)—reckons with the fallout from a mission in Senegal carried out early in his career.
1995: In the wake of the Rwandan genocide, 24-year-old spy Lachlan Kite and his girlfriend, Martha Raine, are sent to Senegal on the trail of a hunted war criminal. The mission threatens to spiral out of control, forcing Kite to make choices which will have devastating consequences not only for his career at top-secret intelligence agency BOX 88, but also for his relationship with Martha.
2023: Eric Appiah, an old friend from Kite’s days at school and an off-the-record BOX 88 asset, makes contact with explosive information about what happened all those years ago in West Africa. When tragedy strikes, Kite must use all the resources at his disposal to protect Martha from a criminal network with links to international terror.
Charles Cumming once again straddles two timelines to create a high-tension thriller in this latest Lachlan Kite novel.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bestseller Cumming adeptly intertwines spy missions past and present for this taut third entry in his BOX 88 series (following 2022's Judas 62). In 1995, Lachlan "Lockie" Kite is still a fledgling agent with BOX 88, an ultra-secret Anglo-American covert ops collective. His latest assignment is to bring to justice Augustin Bagaza, who's responsible for thousands of Tutsi deaths in the Rwandan genocide and is currently living in Senegal. Kite heads to Senegal under cover of an ostensible backpacking vacation with his girlfriend, Martha. When Martha falls ill, Kite contacts an old college friend, Eric Appiah, to take her into his home and care for her while the BOX team abducts Bagaza and his accomplice/mistress, Grace Mavinga. The plan goes awry, and Kite barely escapes alive. Twenty-eight years later, Eric warns Kite that investigative journalist Lucian Michael Cablean has information on the failed operation that could endanger Kite, Martha, and the existence of BOX 88 itself. Meanwhile Mavinga, who's become a heavyweight figure in international money laundering and terrorist financing networks, seeks revenge on all involved. Cumming masterfully orchestrates suspense as the characters' pasts come to bear on their present, and while the ending is fairly abrupt, it promises a breakneck start for the inevitable sequel. This espionage tale grips from the get-go.
