Both authors were new to me.
David McCloskey served as an analyst in the CIA for eight years and then as a consultant at McKinsey. “He worked in CIA field stations across the Middle East throughout the Arab Spring and conducted a rotation in the Counterterrorism Center focused on the jihad in Syria and Iraq. During his time at McKinsey, David advised national security, aerospace, and transportation clients on a range of strategic and operational issues.” (David McCloskey’s website) So far he has written two spy thrillers but doubtless he will churn out more. I am impressed by the plaudits he has garnered from David Petraeus and Simon Sebag Montefiore. Did I tell you I had a chat with the General at my club in October last year? I think I did because I like to drop his name whenever possible.
Damascus Station, at more than four hundred pages, would be good for a long ‘plane or train journey. McCloskey’s strengths are masses of operational detail (warning: a lot of acronyms) about the nitty-gritty of being in the field as an agent. There’s a lot of violence and a good plot but he doesn’t write as thoughtfully as John le Carré, for example. The Daily Mail compares him to Mick Herron and that sums him up; neither are writing great literature but both tell a good page-turner. If I have a long train journey I may read his second thriller, Moscow X.
I enjoyed Boris Akunin a lot more. This is good because there are eight Erast Fandorin mysteries. Like Andrey Kurkov he writes in Russian and is a vehement opponent of Putin’s revanchist foreign policy and internal rule. The former lives in Ukraine and the latter in London. I was told by a medieval history don that leaders in The Sun are hard to write because complex arguments have to be simplified and condensed. He knew because he inadvertently wrote one. He thought he had written a letter but the editor asked him if it could be an editorial. The same applies to writing a detective story set in 19th century Russia. The period (1876) is brought to life convincingly. It is deceptively simple with all the tropes of Bulldog Drummond or the Saint: a sinister secret organisation, escapes from locked rooms, from a weighted sack at the bottom of the Thames, from bombs and guns and chloroform. The reader knows that Fandorin will always somehow escape – it is terrific stuff and I lapped it up.
Boris Akunin’s real name is Grigory Chkhartishvili, but try pronouncing that in a bookshop. He was born in Georgia in 1956 and moved to Moscow when he was two. He only turned his hand to fiction in 2000. Prior to that he was editor-in-chief of the magazine Foreign Literature and an expert on Japan. He translated books from Japanese to English – unusual because neither are his first language. Nevertheless, he wrote The Winter Queen in Russian and it has been translated, rather well. He has spoken out against Putin and that has had consequences.
“In January 2024, Akunin was designated a “foreign agent” by the Russian Ministry of Justice. This designation requires that the subject identify themselves as a “foreign agent” on social media and any other publications, and imposes heavy financial reporting requirements. Later that month, Russia’s Interior Ministry put his name on a wanted list for alleged criminal activity. On 6 February 2024, a Moscow court ordered the arrest of Akunin in absentia.” (Wikipedia)
The second Ernst Fandorin mystery is Murder on the Leviathan; the trope is Agatha Christie’s Murder on The Orient Express.
To criticise our revered blogger feels like interrupting the Gospels at Morning Service; but I do think you are underestimating the literary skills of Mick Herron, especially in the Slough House series. Le Carre was indeed a powerful and skilled writer, with important (to him, anyway) messages to hand down. Herron is a great creator of characters, a skilled plotter, and a gifted humourist. Like Le C he is an acute observer of the way we live now, but somewhat tongue in cheek. And nobody ever accused Le C of being a rival in the humour stakes to Sir Pelham!
Can I also mention Anthony Price, getting rather forgotten alas, but a superb spy writer, a master of all crafts required to make his 19 linked novels truly zing, and a master of English (like wot she is wrote).
Thank you for the Anthony Price recommendation. I will start with The Labyrinth Makers.
Huzzah for the Fandorin novels, which have just the right level of wry humor to leaven his somewhat naïve sense of duty, gallantry, etc. It is interesting to see Fandorin mature as the series progresses (and becomes darker). Akunin’s Japanese knowledge is also brought in with the full exoticism of the period. He has written other books, but I’ve only tried the Pelagia (a sleuthing nun) series, and did not find it as fun to read.