Wow! eBook
Jack of Spies
Author(s): David Downing (Author)
- Publisher: Old Street Publishing
- Publication Date: 3 Sept. 2013
- Language: English
- Print length: 304 pages
- ISBN-10: 1908699299
- ISBN-13: 9781908699299
Book Description
Jack McColl is a globe-trotting salesman for a luxury car firm. He is also a part-time spy for the fledgling Secret Service on the eve of the First World War, doing London’s bidding wherever internal or external enemies threaten the security of the British Empire. As 1913 ends he is in China, checking out the German naval base at Tsingtao between automobile demonstrations in Peking and Shanghai.
Caitlin Hanley is a young Irish-American journalist with the sort of views that most British men would find dangerously advanced. McColl is no exception, but once captivated he finds himself unwilling to give her up — even when Caitlin’s radical politics and family connections threaten to compromise his undeclared career as a spy.
Then the pair become involved in a plot that threatens the Empire in its hour of greatest need . . .
Editorial Reviews
Review
Washington Post
‘Remarkable … Downing is one of the brightest lights in the shadowy world of historical spy fiction’
‘A superb sequence of spy novels comes to an end . . . Like its predecessors,
Masaryk Station offers tight, intelligent plots full of moral ambiguities and a cast of shadowy characters for whom deception is as natural as breathing. The clammy atmosphere of espionage is wonderfully conveyed.’Marcel Berlins in THE TIMES
‘The author not only creates intrigue but, over the course of six engrossing novels chronicles the shifting conscience of his main character. His descriptions ring true, not only in moments of crisis and action but of the quotidian days between: prewar negotiations, threats and reprieves, false alarms, dashed hopes, everyday pleasures, encroaching dread . . . Almost epic in scope, Downing’s “Station” cycle creates a fictional universe rich with a historian’s expertise but rendered with literary style and heart.’
‘Downing’s outstanding evocation of the times (as masterly as that found in Alan Furst’s novels or Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther series), thematic complexity (as rich as that of John le Carré), and the wide assortment of fully rendered characters provide as much or more pleasure than the plot, where disparate threads are tied together in satisfying and unexpected ways.’
‘Excellent … Downing’s strength is his fleshing out of the tense and often dangerous nature of everyday life in a totalitarian state
‘An extraordinary evocation of Nazi Germany’
‘Stands with Alan Furst for detail and atmosphere’
‘Outstanding’
‘Think Robert Harris and
Fatherland mixed with a dash of Le CarréSue Baker, Publishing News
‘A wonderfully drawn spy novel . . . A very auspicious debut, with more to come’
‘Exciting and frightening all at once . . . It’s got everything going for it’
‘An outstanding thriller . . . This series is a quite remarkable achievement’
