Alma Katsu continues to shine as an extraordinary spy author presenting the most believable and nail-bitingly intense stories in step with the geopolitics straight out of the headlines.
CIA agent Lyndsey Duncan is assigned to the London office where she is tasked with handling a newly turned Russian asset. When an attack on a Russian oligarch and his family in their London home makes sparky headlines, her MI6 counterpart and former flame asks her help in going undercover with the oligarch’s wife to find out why the Kremlin would brazenly attempt an assassination on foreign soil. Lyndsey agrees to step into the battlefield of spies and assassins to figure out what the newest Russian despot has in store for the world. Undercover stories have never felt so intense and anxiety-inducing.
Red London elevates the cerebral espionage aspect that readers loved so much in Red Widow. Lyndsey’s greatest assets are her smarts in outwitting her opponents and disarming them intellectually rather than with brute force. The emphasis on tradecraft has never felt more poignant and necessary and helps achieve the perfect balance between old school cerebral tales and modern day fast-paced thrillers. You never know what’s going to happen in the next sentence let alone the next page. This unpredictability stems from complex and dynamic characters with multi-layered motivations that make them remarkably lifelike. The impending feeling of doom stays in the air as you flip through the pages, rooting desperately for Lyndsey as she makes some difficult decisions to accomplish what she must.
Alma Katsu keeps you engaged and hooked from the inception to the conclusion, ending on such a scary cliffhanger that you can’t help but tense up thinking about what will come next. Katsu is setting up this universe splendidly with a plethora of interconnected narratives and subplots to pay off with a bang. I can’t wait to read where Lyndsey Duncan finds herself next, especially after that haunting last sentence.
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