The Russian Intelligence - Michael Moorcock

 The Russian Intelligence is a pastiche spy story featuring a contemporary avatar of Moorcock's Eternal Champion, Jerry Cornell, in Swinging London, at least a decade before the book was written.  Actually it is a reworking and expansion of a story originally written in 1966.   This is Moorcock, after all, and the narrative probably had various earlier incarnations.

It reads like it was written very quickly.   Moorcock reckoned he could do 15,000 words a day in his heyday, so for Russian Intelligence maybe a week, tops.   This being Moorcock, speed doesn't mean inferior, just pacy.   When all is said and done, it is a pastiche of a genre which at the time was itself pretty silly.

Jerry Connell is a Class A agent with Cell 87.   We begin with Connell cradling his dying colleague, Thorp.   Naturally Connell is given the job of tracking down the killers.   Thorp was working on a series of leaks to the Russians.   Clues lead Connell to a publisher of comics, thence to the home of a Russian diplomat who is a subscriber.   While Connell is sneaking round the garden, inside the house the diplomat is being subjected to interrogation by the dreaded Joseph K (one of the better jokes), who is in awe of the British superstar.   Thus the chase begins, taking in discothèques in Soho and the Norfolk Broads.   That's discos in Soho and the damp nothingness of the Broads.

Connell's reputation is unjustified.   The main joke is that he is lazy and cowardly and lives in fear of his wife Shirley, who seems to always know when he has picked up a new girlfriend.   It all ends with a protracted chase around the fens pursued by a spectral horseman and his demonic minions, which is certainly no sillier than say Moonraker, indeed, isn't it what a moonraker used to be?

It's all great fun, expertly done, a window into a time gone by.

Deep Shelter - Oliver Harris

 Deep Shelter is the middle novel of Harris's Nick Belsey trilogy.   Belsey is on restricted duties.   He sees a speeding BMW and gives chase,   The chase ends, the BMW gets out and legs it into what Belsey knows is a blind alley down the side of Costa Coffee - and disappears.

Belsey eventually discovers an entrance to the underground network that lies beneath London, not just the Underground itself, but also the abandoned mail rail system and bunkers built during WW2 and expanded during the Cold War.    Belsey decides it would be a cool idea to take his new girlfriend down there for a date.   While they are down there, the date gets snatched, abducted.   Ultimately Belsey gets an email.   The man he chased, who calls himself Ferryman, has the girl and wants Belsey to come and find her at Site 3.

Belsey of course goes off the radar.   Starts digging into the little information that exists about the subterranean network.   A former spy chief is dumped, naked and dead, behind Centre Point in the middle of London - and all traces spirited away by what looks like the emergency services and isn't.   Very high, very secret police departments start taking an interest in Belsey's case.   His sergeant, and former lover, Kirsty Craik is also taken, first by Ferryman and then by the aforementioned hush-hush squad.   Belsey is sent everywhere, from London homeless shelters to a remote village in Wiltshire as he tries to impose order on chaos.

I love stories of alt-London, secret London, the 'other' megapolis.   I don't know that I have come across a better, more thought-through version than this.   It is also a first rate thriller.   Oliver Harris is a top writer, perhaps the top in contemporary crime fiction and bloody good in spy fiction too.