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The Kremlin's Candidate: A Novel (The Red Sparrow Trilogy Book 3) by Jason Matthews
Fans of spy books will have probably already discovered The Red Sparrow Trilogy. If you enjoy the espionage genre, or simply appreciate a well written thriller, I recommend that you read this series.
Jason Matthews served for over 3 decades in the CIA. His insider knowledge of the intelligence community pays off in his attention to detail and his commitment to telling a realistic story.
The Kremlin’s Candidate feels both timely, and scarily more believable than what we are hearing each night on the news about the real Kremlin’s candidate.
And no, the current US president is not a character in the novel, but the current president of Russia is.
Munich: A Novel by Robert Harris
Unlike Fatherland, Harris’ alternative history of Nazi victory, Munich sticks closely to the historical record.
Harris has researched the events leading up to Neville Chamberlain September 1938 meeting with Hitler in Munich. He weaves the historical record in with a set of fictional characters, composites perhaps of Harris’ research, who tried (and failed) to derail the Nazis.
Munich is never in a hurry. Not too much happens in terms of action or violence. This pacing gives Harris the space to explore how the descent into Nazism and the Second World War must have looked and felt to those who witnessed history unfolding, but were powerless to stop the world from falling apart.
The Smack: A Novel by Richard Lange
The Smack accomplishes the neat trick of making the reader care about a thoroughly dislikable lead character. Rowan Petty is a mid-level conman and a lousy father, but he is not without his charms.
As criminals go, he is way less vicious than the psychopaths that he is trying to steal from. That has to be worth something.
It is fun to read about people who are making bad decisions. Makes one feel better about one’s own choices.
February fiction?
