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Thirty years after a deadly attempt to extract a Russian scientist to safety in Ukraine, master spy Lachlan Kite eludes an assassin in the streets of Dubai.
After a lifetime working with BOX 88, the transatlantic counterintelligence agency so covert that not even the CIA knows of its existence, master spy Lachlan Kite has made plenty of enemies. And now, as the director of the outfit's operations in the UK, one of those past enemies has him in their sights...
1993: Student Lachlan Kite is sent to post-Soviet Russia, a spy in the guise of a language teacher. Embedded in the town of Voronezh, Kite's mission is to extract a chemical weapons scientist before the man's groundbreaking research falls into the wrong hands and shuttle him across the border to freedom in Ukraine. But Kite's mission soon goes wrong and he is left stranded in a hostile city with a former KGB officer on his trail.
2020: Thirty years after that dangerous mission, Kite discovers that its outcome put his name on the notorious "JUDAS" list―a record of enemies of Russia who have been targeted for assassination. Kite's fight for survival takes him to Dubai, a city crawling with international intelligence officers, where he enters into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with the Russian secret state.
The newest installment in the saga of "a spy for the 21st century" (Daily Mail) combines two pulse-pounding narratives that show why Cumming is among the top tier of espionage authors examining the reality of spycraft in the post-Cold War era.
"[An] ambitious sequel...a tour de force of tradecraft and suspense...Cumming does a superb job creating portraits of people, eras, and places. This powerful spy thriller should win the talented author new fans." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Combining dexterous plotting in the manner of Daniel Silva with full-throttle action and character building that whets our appetite to learn more about Kite and his colleagues, Cumming is in top form here." - Booklist (starred review)
"Cumming's timely second installment, following Box 88 (2022), stands alone but also adds breadth and depth to the story of Lachlan Kite. Expect more. An engrossing cloak-and-dagger thriller that's both chilling and convincing." - Kirkus Reviews
"The storytelling is first-rate, with all the minutiae of spycraft, sense of place and memorable supporting characters you could wish for." - Sunday Times (UK)
"The first Kite novel was excellent, but this is even better ― an elegant exposition of what being a spy in the field actually feels like and the fear it can instil in even the most hardened operator. Superbly constructed, it never hurries, but evokes the world of espionage in a way the late John le Carre would have much admired." - Daily Mail (UK)
This information about JUDAS 62 was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Toby Madden
Charles Cumming is a British writer of spy fiction. He was educated at Eton College (1985-1989) and the University of Edinburgh (1990-1994), where he graduated with First Class Honours in English Literature. The Observer has described him as "the best of the new generation of British spy writers who are taking over where John le Carré and Len Deighton left off."
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