Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews

Code names are important in espionage

MARBLE: the highest level operative within the Russian intelligence community ever recruited by the CIA. He’s been providing deep, high level information for nearly 15 years.

SWAN: the highest level operative within the US government ever recruited by the Russians.

DIVA: Russian ballet dancer of promise whose career was sabotaged by a spiteful ballerina. Father was an academic who kept his politics to himself even though his brother had a position of import in Russian intelligence. 

DIVA uses her uncle to help her get into the Russian version of The Farm for training as an intelligence operative, where she excels. Her next training is at the Sparrow School - the Russian school of seduction. Her uncle has a plan for her. Get DIVA to pull information out of MARBLE’s handler as part of a mole hunt. 

MARBLE’s handler is Nathan Nash. After a 12h SDR (Surveillance Detection Route) in Moscow in advance of a meeting with MARBLE, Nash is nearly caught in the net of a random drug sweep. Nathan's boss thinks he screwed up and get’s him reassigned to Helsinki where he now toils under veteran CIA spooks Gable and Forsyth. 

The new clerk in the Russian embassy, Dominika Ergorov (DIVA) is identified as the niece of Vanny Ergorov of the SRU and Nash is assigned to find out more about her. Over the coming months, Nash and Ergorov circle each other in sort of a cat and mouse game of who is going to get info from whom. 

Ergorov develops a friendship with a secretary who was one of the first graduates of the Sparrow School. But when a Spetsnaz goon takes her out, Dominika’s heart for the Rodina is hardened and tells Nash she wants to feed information to the CIA. 

This is all about espionage so it doesn't run at a breathless pace. Not shoot outs, dramatic car chases, and bombs. This is all about manipulation, double cross, triple cross, high level moles on both sides, mole hunts, canary cages, stolen disks, clandestine meetings, lying, deception. 

Matthews spent his first lifetime in The Clandestine Service with postings all over the world so this rings of authenticity from the first SDR to a last sniper’s bullet. . This i’s not the ultra alpha male of Mitch Rapp. It’s more of a younger version of Olen Steinhauer’s Milo Weaver. More cerebral, less testosterone. 

Recommended to me by a Facebook friend (and sports photog extraordinaire) who shares similar reading interests with the MRB boys. Said it was one of the best of the recent espionage books. This was reviewed about an year and half ago by WCD and he was less impressed than I. 

ECD

Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews

I saw that Obama bought this book, Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews, during a recent book buying binge, so I thought I’d check it out. The pitch on the book was that it was a realistic spy novel. Maybe that’s true, but I’ve always thought the real life side of spying would be really boring. If it wasn’t for the hope that this would turn into a really great story (and maybe my loyalty to the President), I would have given up long before it got really interesting, which did not occur until about the 2/3 mark of the book – which is far too long to wait. Ultimately, the premise is good, but the plot is very simple. There is not much in the way of subplots. There are two agents, one Russian, one American, who are each trying to recruit the other to their country’s clandestine services. The characters were interesting and thoroughly, if not slowly, tediously, and painfully developed. There was just one big surprise at the ending. If you like the genre of the international thriller, there are lots of other books out there that are far more entertaining. This one does not get my recommendation. Check out the blog.