I have read a few Charles Cumming novels over the years, but hadn’t caught up with his latest spy series. Box 88 introduces us to Lachlan Kite and the secret Anglo-American intelligence organisation that he is part of – BOX 88.
The story is told in two timelines – a contemporary one where Kite is attending the funeral of an old “Alfordian” (a proxy for “Etonian”) friend of his, and a couple of decades earlier when he was recruited out of his school to join the secret organisation. In the present day, someone is after him, and is using the funeral as a way to get to flush him out of the shadows.
In the past, we learn about his first mission, the basic training he was given, and conflicting thoughts he had at the time, because the person he had to keep tabs on was an Iranian colleague of his school friend’s father. Kite has been invited to join the family at their lavish villa in France, where Kite’s eyes are also falling for another guest at the villa, Martha.
The BOX 88 organisation has all kinds of deniability built into it, so while they receive some intelligence support from the mainstream UK and US intelligence services, their secrecy means it’s limited. And not helping matters is a UK intelligence team who have heard the rumours about this under-the-radar secret service and is investigating.
The Iranian political dimension is all entirely plausible and both the contemporary and historic settings feel spot on. The fact that Cummings is broadly the same age as his spy (as am I), means that cultural references to music, film and TV are spot on!
The dual timeline keeps things interesting. While it does mean that we know that certain characters survive beyond whatever took place all those years ago, we only get hints as to what happened until the story full plays out.
In the present day, Kite is now married to Isobel who only has a vague idea of what her husband does, but that is going to change fairly quickly in this page turner of a novel.
Judas 62 is the second in the series, and once more we get a dual timeline. The “Judas list” here is the list of what the Russian security services consider traitors, and have vowed to bump off. The novel opens with a former Russian spy now living in America being killed by replacing his eye lotion with something much more deadly. We’re in the world of Alexander Litvinenko, Sergei Skripal and the politician Alexei Navalny.
Somehow, a former cover identity of Kite has shown up on the list in position 62. To understand why, we’re taken back a few decades to follow Kite’s second mission.
Fresh out of university, and now in a fulltime relationship with Martha, at short notice Kite is sent off to Russia to whisk away one of their chemical warfare scientists who wants to defect. Kite will be in Russia undercover acting a teacher in an English-language school. His subject is attending, but obviously the Russians are keeping a close eye on a prized asset and other students in his class may not be entirely who they say they are.
Not helping matters is a lovers tiff he has just had with Martha, and he has, in his mind, ended their relationship when he ships out. So it really doesn’t help when she comes looking for him, just as he’s beginning a new relationship with someone he’s met in Russia.
In the present day the team formulate a plan to turn things on their head and track down the man who seems to have put Kite’s alias on the list.
Once again, the setting seems very real. We learn a little of Russia post the fall of the Berlin wall, when chaos reigned. The present day action moves to Dubai where a different type of authoritarianism is in the background as BOX 88 tries to set a trap.
Another great book in the series.