A Free Agent by Jeremy Duns
Published: 2009
Pages: 342
Format: Audiobook from Audible
Audible Narrator: Gerard Doyle
Listened: January 1st - January 3rd, 2023
Song of Treason By Jeremy Duns
Published: 2012
Pages: 240
Format: ebook purchased on Amazon Kindle
Read: January 30 - January 31st, 2023
The Moscow Option by Jeremy Duns
Published: 2012
Pages 400
Read: January 31 - Feb 2, 2023
Format: ebook purchased on Amazon Kindle
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13542923-the-dark-chronicles
The first 3 books of the Paul Dark series were combined in 2012 and republished as the The Dark Chronicles: A Spy Trilogy. So I'm going to combine all three books into one review.
A quick note about the author Jeremy Duns and his books. I'm always intrigued by the amount of research an author must conduct to write a good spy novel. Then to take that research and turn it into a story where the reader feels like they are living the story. It's hard to explain. Tim Shipman from Sunday Times (the "guy" when it comes to spy fiction), says it brilliantly when he talks about author Joe Kannon:
"It is a testament to his writing that the sense of time and place which permeates his writing means it is as if Kanon had personal experience of every locale."
He goes on to say about Kanon and specifically his book Alibi :
"I can still taste the damp, cloying mist coming off the Venetian canals in the back of my throat and see the flickering shadows shape shifting on the walls of the houses."
What a line! And that's how I feel about Dun's writing. His knowledge of the espionage genre is second to none and is known for his exhaustive research which is so evident in this trilogy.
If you are looking for a print copy of the book, you might be out of luck. You can purchase a used copy of the paperback for Free Agent as well as a used paperback copy of The Dark Chronicles: A Spy Trilogy on Amazon. The best way to read the trilogy is to buy the ebook version of the trilogy which contains the first 3 novels. The only audible version is for Free Agent. Here are the links to purchase the books if interested:
Amazon Kindle
Barns and Noble
Books that are written in first-person form get bonus points from me. And lucky me, all three novels are in first-person form from the main character, Paul Dark's perspective.
The first chapter of Free Agent is a beauty...I was hooked right away. It's 1969, Hampshire, England and it's the height of the cold war. The main character Paul Dark has just arrived at his boss's home for an emergency meeting. Dark's boss is the Chief of MI6. Dark himself is a highly respected agent of MI6. However, unbeknownst to MI6, Dark has been a double agent for the GRU (Russia military intelligence) since right after the war in 1945. The meeting is about a possible high-level KGB officer defection in Nigeria. Dark must use all of his skill and cunning to get himself assigned by MI6 to handle the defection in Nigeria.
Simply put, I loved this book. Duns brilliantly flashes the reader back to Germany 1945 to provide the backstory of how and why Dark becomes a double agent. It's only three months after WWII, Dark was attached to the British SOE (Special Operatives Executive) where he reports to his father. Their goal, to go find and kill Nazi war criminals. In "present" day, Dark is in a fight for his life to keep from being exposed as a double agent. The book is full of twists and turns.
It was interesting to learn why and how Dark became a double agent. And then you get a sense that Dark isn't fully committed to the "cause" anymore. Being a double agent isn't at the top of my list of career choices. I'm fascinated as to how and why a person becomes one...I would think it has to be the most stressful job, right?
To be perfectly honest, this book has been in my reading queue for a few years. I wasn't thrilled about a novel where the main character is a double agent. But all my spybrary friends have raved about Dun's writing, in particular the Paul Dark series. If there is one reason to be thankful for my back surgery, it is the fact that I finally decided to listen to this book. I love a book or documentary about a good ole mole hunt. But this was my first book where the protagonist is the double agent and yeah, I kind of liked him. Most of the time, double agents are driven by financial gain but that was not Dark's motivation and it made sense why he became a believer in the "cause."
The narration by Gerard Doyle was top rate. I was thrilled to find out Doyle was the narrator. Doyle is an English actor and book narrator who is absolutely wonderful! I don't know how he does it but he can do all the different English, Irish and American accents. He easily goes from an English Cockney accent to a Yorkshire accent to an Irish accent and they all sound great. I could listen to him all day. One day I will have a list of my favorite audiobook narrators...I guarantee Doyle will be at the top of that list.
Song of Treason starts off with Dark attending a funeral of a main character from Free Agent...I don't want to give away any spoilers. Like Free Agent, Song of Treason starts with a bang...literally and figuratively. A sniper is at the funeral and Dark narrowly misses being shot while a prominent MI6 figure is assassinated. But was Dark the intended target? If so, why?
Song of Treason is fast paced and it was hard for me to put the book down. Hence, I finished it one day. Of course the fact it's only 280 pages and I literally can't do anything but lay down while I convalesce my back injury helped a little...ha.
Dark is convinced the Russians are behind the assassination attempt and want him dead. While Dark is on the prowl to find out who is behind the assassination plot, he uncovers an MI6 conspiracy. Now he's got the Russians and those who in on the MI6 conspiracy how to kill him.
In the third book of the trilogy, The Moscow Option, Paul Dark is a broken man. His past has caught up to him. But somehow, this son of a gun doesn't stop fighting. Again, this is a fast paced novel where literally if I could read this sitting up, I would have been on the edge of my chair. As it were...I was on the edge of my bed? I read this bad boy in 2 days because I could not stop reading.
The Moscow Option is inspired from real events that were declassified in 2005. In the Author's Note at the end of the book, Duns does a great job of summarizing Operation Giant Lance and Nixon's "madman theory" which is was Nixon's foreign policy. In October 1969, President Nixon, in a desperation attempt to end the Vietnam war, raised the nuclear alert level by launching several B-52s loaded up with nukes, towards the eastern boarder of the Soviet Union. The exercise mirrored a true nuclear attack. It was a scare tactic by Nixon and it failed. The Nixon and the US Intelligence community were convinced that Russia was a puppet master of North Vietnam. Thus the scare tactic was intended to put pressure on the Soviet Union who would in turn put the screws to North Vietnam to accept the United States peace agreement and thus end the war.
It is unknown what the Soviets were thinking or doing at the time, but in the book, Duns uses his magnificent literary imagination and has the Soviets ready to start nuclear Armageddon. Dark, at this point in my opinion is a very sympathetic character. He is literally in hell...he's a traitor in the eyes of MI6, to the GRU and KGB. He's in a Russian jail wondering when he will be executed and reflecting on how he wasted his life when suddenly he is pulled out of his cell and brought to a nuclear bunker just outside of Moscow.
All the top Soviet brass, including President Brezhnev, are at the bunker seriously contemplating launching a nuclear attack on England and North America. They have intel that mustard gas was released in the Baltic sea near the Soviet's nuclear bases which resulted in Russian casualties. In addition, they are aware of American B-52s loaded with nuclear bombs heading toward the Soviet border. They are convinced that America is launching a covert nuclear attack. The feeling amongst the leaders is just about unanimous...Brezhnev needs to launch their own covert nuclear attack before the Americans B-52s hit the Soviet border.
The Soviets bring Dark into the bunker with the idea he will provide them with western intel on their nuclear strategies and procedures. Dark is in desperation mode trying to convince the Soviet madmen not to launch a nuclear attack. He recalls an operation he was on in 1945 where the Allies found a sunk German U-Boat that contained containers of mustard gas. He is convinced that the containers must have leaked over time and made it's way down the Baltic to the Russian military bases. He pleads that the Americans are only performing a B-52 exercise.
As Dark is taken from the bunker, he is being transferred to the infamous and feared Lubyanka prison. He knows he must figure out a way to escape and get word to MI6. In the mold of the hit tv series 24, it's a race against time. Dark must pull a Jack Bauer, escape and get word to the West. It is such a compelling book for so many reasons: the pressure on Dark as he literally has the weight of the world on his shoulders, the mental anguish as he deals with the fact he is a traitor and how his life has transpired, and finally the physical toll his body and mind go through on this wild journey to save the world. What a fantastic book.
There is a 4th book in the series, Spy out the Land that was published in 2015. I found a used paperback from a UK bookstore. It won't arrive for a few weeks but once I get my hands on it, I will devour it.
Duns hasn't released any novels since Spy out the Land. In addition to the Dark Series, he has written a few non-fiction espionage books with that latest being published in 2018. I'm trying to get my hands on these books but they are hard to fine. Here's hoping we get to read more books in the future by Jeremy Duns.
Free Agent ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Song of Treason ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Moscow Option ⭐⭐⭐⭐
