There is a lot to like about this book, and much to dislike. To begin with, it is an interesting and diverting plot, reminiscent of all the Cold War novels of the past, albeit set in present-day circumstances. However, the characters seem wooden, caricatures filling in the blanks. Moscow Sting is the sequel to Red to Black, with Anna Resnikov, the KGB Colonel who defected to the West to marry the assassinated former MI6 agent Finn, again playing a major role.
It seems everyone wants to find Anna who was hidden in the south of France with her two-year-old son by the French security arm, and is discovered accidentally by an ex-CIA agent who tries to sell her whereabouts for half a million dollars to the Russians, English and Americans. She and her son are “rescued” by a private United States intelligence company headed by a larger-than-life personage, who takes them to the U.S. to “debrief” her. The reason she is so important is the relationship Finn had with Mikhail, an informant extremely close to Vladimir Putin, and who she presumably knows.
George Washington warned against “foreign entanglements” and Dwight Eisenhower against the military-industrial establishment. However, this novel provides strong reason to distrust the intelligence community, whether public like the CIA or MI6, or private. Each has its shortcomings, with the latter only driven by self-interest which can be as disastrous as, perhaps, the demonstrated ineptness of employees of the official agencies. Written at a fast pace, the tale more often than not is exciting and enlightening, despite its shortcomings.
Recommended.
