The Second Traitor - Alex Gerlis

 I have read two of Gerlis's Richard Price thrillers recently.   I enjoyed both with reservations; they seemed unusually slow to get off the ground but once they did, they rattled along and ended eminently satisfactorily.   The Second Traitor, which must be one of his latest, explores the same World War II territory, but is otherwise entirely different, starting with a bang and never really letting up.

It's the second of Gerlis's Double Agent series and is exactly that.   Everyone is, or could be, a double agent.  British, German, Russian - even Irish and Pro-Nazi British: no one's status is entirely clear.   Does it matter that I haven't read the first in the series?   Not one jot, which is how it should be.   Anything we need to know is revealed over the course of the book whilst the main issue (who, if anyone, is our 'good guy'?) is left wide open.

It seems that our hero is Charles Cooper, aka Christopher Shaw and/or Malcolm Lyle, who is definitely a double, known to the Russians as 'Bertie'.   The time is 1940 and the Russians have a non-aggression pact with Hitler - which shouldn't be taken to mean they are also at war with Britain.   Their status, like Cooper's, is best described as equivocal.   They are, however, keen to ensure that Britain resists any German invasion, otherwise Stalin believes Hitler will turn his empire-building east.   So the NKVD feeds Cooper with information he can pass on to his branch of MI6, the Invasion Warning Sub-Committee.   Meanwhile the Sub-Committee is sheilding Cooper from Murray, who is going round killing anyone who might betray the pro-Nazi Group.   Meanwhile MI6 is keen to identify the other Soviet Agent they know by codename, Archie.   We encounter Archie at intervals through the complex story, merrily killing and betraying agents in the field, whilst getting no clue to his (or her) identity.

The plot is extremely complex.  The timeline is very compressed - the summer of 1940 - but flicks back and forth constantly.   Gerlis makes it so deliberately.   After all, a spider's web is anything but a straight line.   I really enjoyed The Second Traitor and can't wait to get hold of the rest of the series.

Sea of Spies - Alex Gerlis

 Second in the Richard Prince series, Sea of Spies follows straight on from Prince of Spies (reviewed recently on this blog).   It is now the middle of 1943: Prince is back in England, Hanne Jakobsen, who helped him escape the Nazis, is in Ravensbruck concentration camp.   Prince is in England but not back in the police force.   His infant son Henry has been abducted in an adoption scam and Prince has been searching for any trace of him.

Meanwhile MI6 is keen to disrupt the clandestine flow of chromium, essential for missile production, from Romania to Nazi-occupied Czechoslavakia via Turkey.   Turkey is officially neutral and denies all knowledge, despite pressure from Churchill's Chief of Intelligence Sir Roland Pearson.   So Pearson leans on his old schoolfellow Tom Gilbey who persuades Prince to go to Istanbul under the guise of irish journalist Michael Eugene Doyle to gather evidence.   While Prince is away Gilbey puts two retired Scotland Yard detectives on the hunt for the missing boy.

Just gather evidence and get out of there - those are Prince's instructions.   Of course, that's now how it pans out.   Prince is suckered into rescuing a different boy from Nazi-occupied Greece, in return for which he is smuggled aboard a ship carrying chromium to the former Skoda factory in Pilsen.

The story itself is excellent.   The problem is, the main plotline isn't raised until Chapter 6 and Prince doesn't appear until Chapter 7.   As in Prince of Spies, Gerlis takes too long to get going.   Personally I would have started with Chapter 6 and filtered everything else in later.   Proofreading, as ever these days, isn't perfect but a more serious problem is the lack of invention with names.   There are too many Martins, for example.   Likewise, more diligent editing would have revealed clumsily repeated words in the same sentence.   Small flaws in themselves but they add up.

On the other hand, Gerlis's geopgraphical setting is first rate, totally convincing.   Prince's character continues to develop and there are interesting characters emerging at MI6.   Once it gets moving, Sea of Spies is engrossing and compelling.   I never thought I could get even slightly interested in chromium.

I like the sound of Ring of Spies, the next in the Prince series - and then there's Gilbey's other series, Spy Masters... 

Prince of Spies - Alex Gerlis

 Prince of Spies is the first in Alex Gerlis's quartet featuring Lincolnshire Detective Superintendent Richard Prince, who in 1942 is recruited by MI6 and sent undercover to occupied Denmark to root out a potential mole in Six and to check out sources who have been relaying information about the V1 and V2 programme.   Prince's mother was Danish and he spent his school holidays there.    He also speaks a reasonable amount of German and some French.

The mission is only supposed to last a couple of weeks but Prince's contacts are thorough.  His main contact, Agent Osric (Prince is Laertes), is also a cop, a female detective in Copenhagen called Hanna Jakobsen.   Other contacts and agents are kept at arm's length but include anti-Nazi Germans at the highest level.   After a slow-burning start, Denmark is where the novel really comes alive.   Gerlis uses straightforward prose which, at that point, becomes vital for us to be able to follow the twists and turns of who is who and where they stand.   The characterisation of these agents is more detailed than usual in spy fiction - particularly in war spy fiction, which tends to favour stereotypes of good and evil.   This is the sign of Gerlis's mastery in the genre; he is now launching his fourth series of wartime novels.   It enables us to appreciate the sacrifice these people make.

The thrill-rate is well managed and there are couple of intriguing side-plots.   I especially enjoyed the betrayal of the high-ranking SS officer by his wife, which is entirely conducted in letters and a couple of official memos.   I also liked the arguments over tactics between the spies, the military, and Winston Churchill's special advisers.   I suspect these play out over series.   I am definitely adding Gerlis to my list of must-reads.