Fatal Ally

Convincing and intelligent characters elevate this complex contemporary spy thriller from British author Sebastian (Spy in Question). After a five-year silence, Arkady Mazurin, who was once the U.K.’s most valuable Russian intelligence asset, makes contact with the British station chief in Moscow. He’s ready to defect to the West. MI6 agent Margo Lane approaches an American agent in an attempt to broker an exit strategy for Mazurin, only to be rebuffed, though she later gets involved in an operation to extract Mazurin that fails. In the process, she learns that she must try to protect her country from its enemies and allies alike. As the U.S. president says, “If allies ever told each other the truth, they wouldn’t be allies for very long.” A subsequent mission to kill a rogue agent takes Lane into the dangerous no-man’s-land on the Syrian border with Jordan. Readers will be fascinated to watch Lane, who provides the novel’s moral center, as she comes to terms with her order to kill, recognizing the personal costs of her decision to comply. Spy fiction aficionados looking for more than just the usual good guy vs. bad guy conflict will be rewarded. [em]Agent: Claudia Young, Greene & Heaton (U.K.). (Sept.) [/em]