JUDAS 62 (Box 88)

Starred review from September 19, 2022
The main action of Cumming’s ambitious sequel to 2021’s Box 88 opens with the assassination in Connecticut of 77-year-old Saul Kaszeta, a former Russian general. Kaszeta “had been a source for BOX 88, a top-secret Anglo-American spy agency, for the final nine years of his military career.” To Lachlan Kite, a career BOX 88 agent, this appears to be a reprisal hit carried out by the FSB, and it brings up a highly personal memory for Kite—his successful 1993 exfiltration of Yuri Aranov, a bioweapons scientist. Flashbacks provide a gripping account of Aranov’s exfiltration, which launched Kite’s BOX 88 career and earned him a lifelong enemy, Mikhail Gromik, a Russian intelligence officer who tried to prevent Aranov’s defection. Kite realizes that both he and Aranov are in danger—their names are on the JUDAS list, “targeted for reprisal assassinations by Moscow.” In a tour de force of tradecraft and suspense set in Dubai, the book’s second half follows an intricate plan to ensure Aranov’s safety and neutralize Gromik. Cumming does a superb job creating portraits of people, eras, and places. This powerful spy thriller should win the talented author new fans. Agent: Luke Janklow, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc.

October 1, 2022
The past comes calling for a London spy, setting him on a course of revenge. The horrible death of ceramics-factory worker Alexei Nikolaye after a disastrous--and top secret--leak from a Soviet bioweapons program in 1979 serves as prologue to the present-day murder of Russian �migr� and retired spy Saul Kaszeta near his Adirondack cabin. In London, meanwhile, Lachlan Kite, a British intelligence agent, is dealing with his mother's descent into Alzheimer's when he receives an unwelcome visit. His colleague Cara Jannaway has unsettling news about a new addition to a hit list called JUDAS that contains the names of former Russian intelligence personnel living in the West, several of whom have been murdered. When Kite sees Peter Galvin, a former alias of his own, listed as JUDAS 62, he realizes that he must act to save himself and his family, who know nothing of his intelligence work. As one character remarks, "the personal is operational." So it is with Cumming, who creates fully fleshed characters whose storylines play out in a perilously realistic world. Before undertaking an intricate mission that culminates in Dubai and involves leveraging the assistance of businesswoman and call girl Natalia Kovalenko, flashbacks take Kite to 1993, when he first became involved in espionage as a carefree cricketer at Eton. Cumming's timely second installment, following Box 88 (2022), stands alone but also adds breadth and depth to the story of Lachlan Kite. Expect more. An engrossing cloak-and-dagger thriller that's both chilling and convincing.

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Starred review from October 15, 2022
The assassination of a former Soviet general living in Connecticut sends a red flag to Lachlan Kite, UK head of BOX 88, an espionage agency so far off the grid that neither the CIA nor MI6 knows it exists. The Russians, Kite learns, are methodically assassinating the people whose names appear on something called the JUDAS list, made up mainly of Russian nationals who defected to the West--except that Kite's name is also on the list. Why? The answer lies in an assignment Kite carried out in 1993, the exfiltration of Soviet bioweapons expert Yuri Aranov. The job was successful, but it was not without the bane of a spy's existence, collateral damage, and now the repercussions from that damage are threatening Aranov, Kite, and Kite's former girlfriend, Martha Raine. As in the series opener, BOX 88 (2022), Cumming brilliantly jumps from the episode in Kite's past that is driving the crisis in the present. To keep Aranov and Kite safe, the BOX 88 team must confront the Russian spymaster whom Kite outwitted 30 years ago, Mikhail Gromik, and the elaborate plan the team conceives to do so takes place in Dubai, a city as teeming with spies as Lisbon was during WWII. Combining dexterous plotting in the manner of Daniel Silva with full-throttle action and character building that whets our appetite to learn more about Kite and his colleagues, Cumming is in top form here.

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