In this breakneck, race-against-the-clock thriller, a female British spy has twelve hours to deliver her asset across London while being pursued through the streets of London by Russian intelligence. Can she make it without being spotted . . . or killed?
A freshly-minted secret agent, Emma Makepeace has barely graduated from basic training when she gets the call for her first major assignment. Eager to serve her country and prove her worth, she dives in head first.
Emma must covertly travel across the world’s most watched city to bring the reluctant adult son of Russian dissidents into protective custody, so long as the assassins from the tracking him down don’t get to him first. With London’s famous Ring of Steel hacked by the Russian government, the two must cross the city without being seen by the hundreds of thousands of CCTV cameras that document every inch of the city’s streets, alleys, and gutters.
The underground, buses, trains and cars, are completely out of the question. Traveling on foot, with no phone or bank cards, Emma and her charge have twelve hours to make it to safety. This will take all of Emma’s skills of disguise and subterfuge. But when Emma’s handler goes dark, there’s no one left to trust. Just one wrong move could get them both killed and the clock is ticking…
A massive new talent in British fiction, Ava Glass’s storytelling is complex and finely crafted, combining twisting plotlines, intelligent dialogue and ambiguous characters, all skilfully brought together in an epic climax. Never before has spy fiction been so nail-bitingly real.
It's such a pleasure to be sharing my review of The Chase today. Many thanks to Ava Glass and Penguin Books for my advance digital copy of the novel.
Move over, Bond, there's a new British spy in town – the name's Makepeace, Emma Makepeace. I love espionage fiction and have been looking forward to reading The Chase ever since I heard Ava Glass talk about her book during last year's Capital Crime festival. As a former civil servant who has seen the world she now writes about close up, Ava Glass is able to inject her novel with an assured authenticity and the result is a thriller which kept me engrossed from first page to last.
The ominous opening chapter doesn't reveal too much and yet makes it abundantly clear that there are mercilessly skilled assassins in town. Emma isn't introduced until the next chapter when we learn that she has been working undercover. Despite her relative inexperience, her impressive skill set is never in any doubt and her ability to inhabit different roles ensures she is a fascinating protagonist. Throughout the novel, we learn more about her past and what led her into such a dangerous career and for all her undoubted strengths, I particularly appreciated just what a rounded character she is. She has limitations and is still learning her craft so is understandably apprehensive when she is tasked with persuading the adult son of a prominent Russian dissident to accept he needs to be brought into protective custody. Gaining Michael's trust and convincing him he needs to disappear is a difficult enough task when there are highly trained Russian operatives also after him but when she learns the Russians have hacked into London's CCTV system and that she is on her own, with no idea who she can really trust, the assignment seems almost impossible.
It's well known that London is one of the most surveilled cities in the world and so Emma and Michael's mission is breathtakingly dangerous. This is a truly high-octane thriller with nail-bitingly tense scenes scattered liberally throughout the book. Both readers and characters scarcely have time to recover from one close call before the pair are in mortal peril once again. However, for all the action, Ava Glass never disregards the importance of character development and the resourceful Emma and Michael are fully formed, believable protagonists who I liked and perhaps more importantly, believed in.
They share a few moments during quieter times which gives us an intriguing insight into what drives them both and I really enjoyed seeing how their interactions develop as the novel progresses. The nature of espionage means the antagonists are necessarily more opaque but there's one character in particular who makes a strong impression and there's a real sense of the old Cold War hostilities evoked here. It's also chillingly apparent that the actions of the past continue to influence what takes place in the present day; old scores still need settling – and Emma is right in the middle of it all.
The Chase is a blisteringly paced race against time thriller with an intelligent, gripping plot and a superb sense of place. Suspenseful, engaging and exciting from start to finish, this is a first-rate introduction to the Alias Emma series and Emma Makepeace is a welcome new addition to the world of fictional spies. I enjoyed The Chase immensely and can't wait for more. Very highly recommended.
The Chase was published in the UK by Penguin on 16th February 2023, purchasing links can be found here.
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