The Helsinki Affair

I haven't read many spy thrillers specifically which feels like it's own distinct little niche, but this did feel similar to the ones that I have: a daring inciting incident followed by a lot of very careful plotting and scheming. Every scenario has to be gamed out in its entirety before any action can be taken... which means that by definition there isn't going to be a lot of action.

It mostly worked here though. This was helped by the fact that the plot kept jumping between the present and the late 80's, following both a woman whose intelligence career is on an upward trajectory faster than even she anticipated and her father who was also a spy with plenty of skeletons in his closet. They felt completely distinct from each other, and had their own ways of interacting with the overall theme of guilt.

The scenes where agents were meeting with contacts in the field were fun and tense, but they were also too few for my liking. The initial plotline kind of gets lost and the climax happened so early that I didn't even realize it was the climax when it happened. The ending also felt intentionally left open for a sequel or continuation of some kind, but overall this book could have been a lot worse and it was at least coherent.

The author's goal was to write something like John le Carré but with more female spies. I haven't read enough le Carré to judge the resemblance. Amanda Cole is a CIA agent, the daughter of CIA agent Charlie Cole. Posted in Rome, she interviews a Russian walk-in who claims that Senator Bob Vogel is about to be assassinated on a trip to Egypt. The station chief tells her that everything is too fantastic to believe, suggests Russia is testing them with fake info, and orders her to do nothing. Of course, Bob Vogel is killed in Egypt in exactly the way the walk-in predicts. Amanda starts on operations to make use of the source.

When Vogel's chief of staff goes through the papers on his desk, he has extensive notes on meetings with a Russian oligarch. Meetings that she knows nothing about, and she knows everything about the Senator's business. Notes that indicate he's getting information on Russian shenanigans that he hasn't shared with the CIA. She brings them to Amanda Cole's attention when Cole informs her that Vogel didn't die of natural causes.

And the last page of those notes has the Russian oligarch passing on Charlie Cole's name, to what end is unclear. So Amanda Cole is both trying to beat the Russians at their spy game as well as figure out what involvement her father had in it.

The spycraft contained is mostly psychological and small pieces of leverage, but there's also the occasional more active skulduggery.

Very very enjoyable.