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Teems with twists and the denouement is imaginative and unexpected.”– Times (UK), on Secret Service
A strong dose of international politics with an all-too-plausible premise.”– Observer, on Secret Service I would thoroughly recommend all 3 books. It is difficult to be objective when you have immersed yourself from start to finish but I’m not sure how well this would be as a stand alone. I think suffice to say - it wouldn’t be as enjoyable and you would have missed 2 excellent reads that go before - so start at the beginning and strap yourself in for the ride. With respect to the audiobook, Juliet Aubrey is an established British actor of theatre, film and television. While she has only narrated a select number of titles, she has been the narrator for all of the Kate Henderson trilogy. Her voice is crystal clear and a pleasure to listen to. I do feel also that with this one, Bradby really did go all-out. Car chases, violence, and a bit of James Bond-esque entanglements, shall we say, with colleagues, Kate Henderson really does it all in this book. But, she is a woman… and they can kind of do everything at once. Somehow Bradby manages to capture this trait of Kate’s and amplify it in a subtle way – we are always in awe of Kate and how she honours her responsibilities. We never tire of her following through on those, as some authors fail to prevent when portraying strong, powerful women. As Stuart says, it’s why we love her.
Summary
There are resonant echoes of le Carré here–in the way the betrayals reach from marriage beds to the seats of governments–but there is also a distinctly contemporary feeling in the idea that truth, even when it’s discoverable, may no longer matter.”– Booklist (starred review), on Secret Service The Prime Minister wants her help (again) to prove that he is not a Russian agent. Kate wants to say no, but he makes her an offer that she cannot refuse.
Secret Service" and "Double Agent", the previous installments in the Kate Henderson series, were great reads. They were fast-paced, cerebral at times, and were thrilling from start to end. But "Triple Cross", the latest installment, is underwhelming, to say the least, and doesn't resemble in any way the previous books.
The Master of Ruin” is the third stand alone novel and was released in the year 2002. Shanghai in the year 1926. A city of American gun-runners, British Imperial civil servants, Chinese gangsters, and Russian princesses, where everything is for sale and heroin is available on room service. Sexually liberated, exotic, and pulsing with life, it is a time and place where it all seems possible. The plotting is superb; convoluted so it’s impossible to second guess where the story is leading. Who’s at the heart of betrayal. It could be a husband, close friend, colleague, senior official or even the PM. The skill in the storytelling is that we’re kept guessing. The pace is fast, there’s a real sense of danger and excitement and I felt as if I’d been dropped into the middle of a world of espionage and double dealing. All I do know is that Bradby captures in Kate Henderson a psychological complexity based in raw honesty – and that’s an asset to any character, let alone a top MI6 spy character. We all have flaws, and we all want comfort. But sometimes old comfort isn’t really comforting at all. Bradby captures the tensions of this, and the importance of trust, in Triple Cross, and the novel is all the better for it. Triple Cross is probably a more considered spy novel than its predecessors and there is a lot of to-ing and fro-ing about the mole’s identity and whether there is even a mole. The book, however, steadily builds in suspense, with some well-written and suspenseful set-pieces, and a terrific chase climax, which is as exciting as anything I have read in recent years. The final revelation of the truth behind ‘Agent Dante’ is well worked out and reasonably surprising, although there are clues in the final stages.
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