Double Agent: From the bestselling author of Secret Service

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I really hope this series of books get made into a film or tv series as would be fantastic and hope there will be a third instalment n the not too distant future!

And, more worryingly, it seems that there are key people at the heart of the British Establishment who refuse to acknowledge the reality in front of them. The only problem I had was with Kate’s icy and almost non-existent reaction to something that would be a spoiler but I feel should have had more emotional kick—perhaps her training, perhaps the author’s choice, but did not resonate as the Kate I am coming to understand.

These questions plague Kate as she tries to keep it together for her children and ailing mother, steadily losing sleep and, she fears, her sanity. For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin. Kate is kidnapped and given a deal that they (more Russians) will give her a video that will destroy the career of the current PM in exchange for safe passage to the UK.

A similar dichotomy arises too between Kate’s super-spy activities and her concerns for her children. I read this with The Pigeonhole and it wasn't helped by having one stave every two days, plus reading two other books which came out every day. Spy novelists inevitably fall into two camps; those that dazzle with their insider knowledge of duplicitous governments and their rogue agencies - so much so that they forget the compact of mutual understanding with their reader. As she works through the case, Kate runs up against key people at the heart of the British Establishment who refuse to acknowledge the reality in front of them.In many ways this was like a ‘tying up loose ends’ from the previous book and was good to be back with Senior MI6’s Kate and the gang as they once again tried to unravel fact from fiction as to whether the PM was indeed a Russian spy! Side by side with the tense spy thrills is the story of the unravelling of M16 agent Kate as she tries to cope with the personal implications of events. Kate realizes soon enough that everything can be one big chess game the Russians play, with t heir goal of destabilizing the British intelligence agencies. The paranoia levels here are very high, although very subtle indeed, and as the plot advances, you find yourself, alongside Kate, having trouble to trust anyone, not knowing what's real and what's not. There again begins an operation to determine the veracity of this and we get more office and political manoeuvring, Kate putting herself in danger again and so on.

How a modern intelligence service could permit an employee so clearly in crisis to continue to make momentous decisions is not addressed, and overall there's a sort of shaggy imprecision in Kate's MI6, so it's not a big surprise that the evidence of Ryan's guilt is suppressed or corrupted, and Kate's quest has plenty of scope for a third volume. Stuart was unveiled in the first book as an adulterer with her best friend but more embarrassing to a secret service high flyer also a Russian Spy.The contemporary geopolitical detail is also convincing and the descriptions of the various locales from Venice to London to Moscow and Tbilisi are spot-on and quite evocative and add a further layer of credibility to the story.

We learn about Kate’s possibly stalling career and Leo’s plan to apply to acting schools against his mother’s wishes. As I want to tread carefully with respect to spoilers for ‘Secret Service’, I will be vague about the plot for ‘Double Agent’. Kate's work life balance is pretty screwed in this second installment of the working mother M15 agent thriller series. All the characters are believable and well fleshed-out, and I was glad to see more of Julia, who proves yet again, that despite her unpredictable mood-swings, she's as loyal, intelligent and capable agent as ever. The deal on the table: arrange for the safe passage of the defector and his family in exchange for proof that the British Prime Minister is an agent for the Russians.

If you're considering reading "Double Agent", take into consideration that this is a second book, "Secret Service" being the first, and you'll have to read the first one as the plot of "Double Agent" continues directly from the first- otherwise, it'll be vert difficult to understand the plot or get into the swing of things. Unexpectedly, she receives an approach from Borodin, a senior agent in Russia’s SVR, successor to the KGB, offering to defect to the West. In exchange he offers Kate conclusive evidence to prove the identity of a live Russian agent at the very heart of the British Government.