Secret Service

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Overall, it was sufficiently involving to keep me interested until the end. It’s nothing that special but it’s not bad by any means and I’ll try the next one because there’s promise here. 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4. Their relationship has never recovered since Harry's wife's suicide, for which Sean holds his father responsible. And Harry, with his career on the verge of disintegration, needs to find him and put things right. In the past MI6 have been manipulated by false whispers and it is treated suspiciously until the PM unexpectedly steps aside.

Attempting to rebuild her shattered life in the South of France, former MI6 operative Kate Henderson receives an unexpected and most unwelcome visit from an old adversary: the UK Prime Minister. He has an extraordinary story to tell - and he needs her help. The two primary candidates for prime minister, James Ryan and Imogen Conrad, present their own complications. Ryan is a long-time establishment conservative who also happens to be a former school chum of Kate’s boss, the head of MI6. And Conrad’s right-hand man is Kate’s husband, Stuart, who finds his loyalties torn between his wife and his boss. With the stakes this high, can the truth ever come out? Or is the cost of uncovering it a price that no one, least of all Kate, can afford to pay? On the plus side, the writing is not bad and the action, although slow in parts, does keep you reading. The characters themselves, esp Kates superiors, Sir Alan and Ian, are well done. Even the walk on characters are fully rounded and easily recognisable types. A special operation seems to good to be true when MI6 hear information around the PM’s health and the possible general election where one of the candidates has strong leanings toward the Kremlin. Furthermore in intel implies the agency is compromised with a mole ready and willing to ensure the result is in Russia’s favour.

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It’s weak character work for a protagonist who could, and should, be better. All these details may seem like complications, but they’re really just rote stabs at shading in a character, so familiar that they’re mostly a parody at this point. Nothing good ever comes from a midnight phone call, especially from Downing Street. For washed-up spy Harry Tower, it is the worst news at the worst possible time. His son, Sean, has gone missing in troubled Iran after writing an exposé about government corruption.

But honestly, that's your plot, Mr Bradby? Really, you CANNOT be serious with such a blatantly predictable villain. Everything you had that man do was suspicious Mach 5 and everything out of his mouth sounded like Grade A bullshit. Ihre eigentliche Mission ist noch viel gefährlicher als es scheint, denn der Premierminister ist an Krebs erkrankt und muss sein Amt aufgeben. Doch einer der Kandidaten für dieses Amt schein ein russischer Spion zu sein. Kate gerät in einen Sumpf aus Lügen, Intrigen und brutalen Machenschaften… Having said that it was a gripping and enjoyable read. I found it absolutely fascinating, as anything to do with politics, you’d never really know who was telling the truth, as they are all such accomplished liars, and these people rule over us. I recognised the authors name but wasn’t till looked him up realised who he was and saw he has had published quite a few books

Kate Henderson books in order: the complete series:

When she became a minister, she was very voluble, particularly about the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, which had happened a few years before she joined the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. She took a very tough line, demanding stiffer sanctions and actually getting them imposed on a wider section of the president’s inner circle. … She’s barely spoken publicly about Russia since.”

I warmed to her character and found the book easy to read, especially with her being the driving force of the novel.

The book opens in Istanbul, where Kate and her team of MI6 operatives are ready to bug a Russian oligarch’s yacht. Kate has inside intelligence that a big meeting is slated to take place on the yacht, and sure enough, the heads of Russia’s secret services show up for sit down with the oligarch. The meeting yields a bombshell: the British prime minister is going to step down in a few days and one of the leading candidates to replace him is a secret Russian asset. And even worse, there’s a Russian mole at the heart of the British government who’s helping move the plot along. It's a fast-paced, easy read which plays perfectly on the fears of both the political establishment and the general population. Moving between rich, vivid locations we follow protagonist Kate who begins a covert investigation into corruption in the top-levels of the UK government but her conflicting loyalties creep into her head rather a lot. It's certainly a high-octane, high-stakes story full of palpable tension which builds and builds beautifully. There are some parallels that can be drawn between some of the cast here and those currently in the real-world political spotlight. I suspect that was intentional on Bradby's part.

What ensues is a twist filled, fast paced thrill ride. There are many misdirections in discovering who Viper is and it really keeps you guessing. I found this book really hard to put down and read it in less than 24 hours. I highly recommend!. Bradby has the talent of a reporter but the heart of a storyteller.”— Daily Mail on The God of Chaos To those who don't really know her, Kate Henderson's life must seem perfectly ordinary. But she is in fact a senior MI6 officer, who right now is nursing the political equivalent of a nuclear bomb.

Books Like Tom Bradby’s Kate Henderson:

Bradby has the talent of a reporter but the heart of a storyteller" — Daily Mail (UK), on The God of Chaos As exciting as the Bodyguard, thoroughly enjoyable, well written, satisfying and left me wanting to read all his previous books!