A book blog about Russia in English-language fiction
(Part one of this review is here)
Black Sun is set in a world on the turn.
It is a thriller bathed throughout in its titular saturnine radiance, emanating from RDS-220, the Tsar Bomba – to this day the most powerful explosion ever created by humankind.
(Part two of this review is here)
As a thriller, excellent. From the Russia-in-fiction perspective, first class.
Black Sun is a superior and original whodunnit set in the closed city of Arzamas-16 in October 1961, the week in which the Soviet Union tested the biggest nuclear weapon ever exploded.
Continue reading(Part one of this review is here)
Tom Bradby’s Secret Service goes for a straight down the line buy-in to the standard thriller-writer depiction of Putin-era Russia in the second decade of the 21st century.
(Part two of this review is here)
A quick review of what was for Russia in Fiction a quick summer read. If you fancy a spy/political thriller for the beach or the pool, this will do the trick.
Secret Service is the first in a trilogy written by Tom Bradby, a nationally known journalist and newscaster in the UK.
Part one of this review is here.
Jason Matthews comes to espionage fiction as a member of the ‘former spy’ school of writers. He is ex-CIA. The backcover blurb on Red Sparrow has veteran US thriller writer Nelson DeMille proclaiming that
Jason Matthews is not making it up; he has lived this life and this story, and it shows on every page.
Nelson De Mille, on Red Sparrow
Part two of this review is here.
Jason Matthews was a newcomer to the spy fiction genre when Red Sparrow was published in 2013. Within five years, Red Sparrow was the first in the Dominika Egorova trilogy and was a movie starring Jennifer Lawrence, replete with graphic violence and what are best described as ‘scenes of a sexual nature’.
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