A Shadow Intelligence

February 1, 2020
When his lover and fellow spy Joanna Lake disappears in Kazakhstan, free-floating operative Elliot Kane slips away from his MI6 bosses to go after her, unaware of new dangers in the post-Soviet republic. Kane hasn't seen Joanna in six months when he receives a coded warning from her. She had been working on psy-ops in an ultrasecret intelligence division in England but was eased out for troubling reasons. She was last seen in the Kazakhstan city of Astana, where she was said to be active as a human rights journalist under the name Vanessa McDonald. A man of many aliases, Kane slips into several of them in the process of collecting information from intelligence sources and corporate and government connections. At the core of the story is the coldblooded campaign for control of Kazakhstan's vast quantity of natural oil. Another battle is being fought between Kazakh nationalists and citizens under the sway of a sophisticated Russian disinformation campaign. Harris, acclaimed for detective thrillers including The Hollow Man (2011) and The House of Fame (2016), makes a masterful entry into spy fiction. This may be the deepest a contemporary spy novel has penetrated the cold new world of dark web intelligence and cellphone surveillance and the intellectual as well as pragmatic life of a spook "who existed because of the things the government wasn't allowed to do." At the same time, the frozen landscape asserts itself in a profound way, never more than when Kane is speeding across the salt flats on his way to the worst possible dead end. There's a lot to absorb in this book of many names and associations, but the reader's commitment is amply rewarded. An absorbing, superbly written novel likely to stand as one of the best spy novels of the year.

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February 10, 2020
This dark, convoluted spy thriller from Harris (the Nick Belsey detective series) takes MI6 operative Elliot Kane, who has spent most of his career in the Middle East running missions that rarely appear on the public radar, to the sprawling former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, where agent Joanna Lake, a colleague and lover, has gone missing. What he believes will be a simple search in the capitol city of Astana quickly disintegrates into a messy endeavor involving oil companies, private security firms, corrupt politics, and psychological warfare. His undercover quest forces Kane, who’s schooled in personal deception and secrecy, to reveal what he values most: his identity as an MI6 agent. Stunning bursts of violence, restrained glimpses into the world of spycraft, and lean, savvy dialogue, however, are all too often lost amid complex plot twists and an ever-increasing cast. A deflating ending doesn’t help. Still, Harris shows enough potential to suggest he can more than hold his own in the espionage genre. Agent: Grainne Fox, Fletcher & Co.

March 1, 2020

After three notable crime novels featuring morally compromised detective Nick Belsey (most recently The House of Fame), British author Harris tries his hand at the spy genre, featuring a morally compromised double--possibly triple--agent. Elliot Kane, who possesses less James Bond suavity and more George Smiley world-weariness, has changed identities and cover stories so often that when MI6 suddenly removes him from a botched operation to civilian life, he doesn't know how to adjust. Before long, Elliot becomes ensnared in a mystery that will send him off the grid to Kazakhstan: uncovering the whereabouts of fellow agent and one-time lover Joanna Lake. What he discovers about Joanna's reason for being in this landlocked country perched precariously between China and Russia puts him in play with several competing intelligence organizations both national and private. The narrative is dense, and juggling the various plots and identities can be tough. Still, this is a thoroughly modern, sophisticated espionage novel for the 21st century, concerned with data encryption and the dark web, AI-generated deep fakes, and up-to-date Central Asian geopolitics. VERDICT Recommended for fans of Olen Steinhauer's spy novels and Terry Hayes's I Am Pilgrim.--Michael Pucci, South Orange P.L., NJ

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2020
Harris switches gears here, moving from bent London cop Nick Belsey (The House of Fame, 2017) to burned-out MI6 agent Elliot Kane, who has too many cover identities and no real self. That changes when he receives a cryptic message from fellow agent and onetime lover Joanna Lake, who implies she's in serious danger. Elliot is on the go, as himself this time; the trail takes him to desolate but oil-rich Kazakhstan, which shares borders with both Russia and China, and where Joanna was last seen, in deep cover herself, apparently fighting a digital war based on "psyops," a war where "the battlefield is the mind," and the goal is "feeding an opponent specifically prepared information so they make a decision of your choosing." This is fascinating stuff, with obvious connections to the headlines of the day, but all the keyboard pounding by Eliot and others gets a bit abstruse; still, there is a dynamite finale, in which bytes morph into bombs, and a tragic love story in which the lovers, like so many spies before them, can't come in from the cold.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)