This is the second Canning novel that I have read after being introduced to them by the great Olman. This book is excellent and very different than the first VC book that I read which was more like a posh Desmond Bagley book. This one is set in 1950s Yugoslavia soon after Tito has cemented his power and just as he is beginning to show that he is not prepared to blindly follow Stalin's lead. The book is filled with underhanded criticism of Tito, Stalin and communism to the point that at one point I thought that this must be a propaganda book.
It is difficult to review spy fiction because one gives away so much during the course of the review but I will say what I can. The book is set in Dubrovnik where Raikes and Hudson, two engineers working for a British firm, are taking a short holiday while they wait for the Yugoslav Minister of Interior to return from a trip to Russia and sign a contract that they had given his office. The two of them have two weeks on their hand so they head south as special guests of the Yugoslav government. Dubrovnik is a great setting for a spy story with its cliff side geography, historic buildings and winding alley ways.
Canning's book is very well written, rarely slow and a great piece of spy fiction. I urge you all to pick it up.
2 comments:
Oooh very cool. I've never read anything set in Tito's Yugoslavia, but now that I am aware of it, it seems like such a perfect place for a cold war story. That cover is amazing.
I have to find some books by this guy. Good review.
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