RIGHT PLACE. RIGHT TIME. WRONG MAN.
Jamie Tulloch is a successful exec at a top tech company, a long way from the tough upbringing that drove him to rise so far and so quickly.
But he has a secret…since the age of 23, he’s had a helping hand from the Legend Programme, a secret intelligence effort to prepare impenetrable backstories for undercover agents. Real people, living real lives, willing to hand over their identities for a few weeks in return for a helping hand with plum jobs, influence and access.
When his tap on the shoulder finally comes, it’s swiftly followed by the thud of a body. Arriving at a French airport ready to hand over his identity, Jamie finds his primary contact dead, the agent who’s supposed to step into his life AWOL and his options for escape non-existent.
Pitched into a deadly mission on hostile territory, Jamie must contend with a rogue Russian general, arms dealers, elite hackers, CIA tac-ops and the discovery of a brewing plan for war. Dangerously out of his depth, he must convince his sceptical mission handler he can do the job of a trained field agent while using his own life story as convincing cover.
Can Jamie play himself well enough to avoid being killed – and to avert a lethal global conflict?
My preference in spy fiction leans towards Cold War thrillers, however, books like A Reluctant Spy, the excellent debut from David Goodman make me happily reconsider that position. This assured novel is (primarily) set in the present day, and particularly refreshingly largely in Tanzania, most notably in Zanzibar, a location I can’t recall coming across in fiction before.
After Jeremy Althrop was interrogated in Kyrgyzstan in 2003, he realised that the rapid advances in the digital revolution meant the old tools of spycraft for field agents were no longer enough. Interrogators with access to search engines were now quickly able to debunk previously watertight cover stories but, of course, necessity is the mother of invention and so his brainchild, the Legend Programme came into being. The Legends are recruited to be real people, living real lives but in return for the use of their identities for a few weeks, they are given opportunities in their careers that wouldn't usually come their way. Jamie Tulloch, for instance, was raised by a single mother in a social housing block on the outskirts of Edinburgh and although he has earned a postgraduate offer from Stanford, he'll never be able to compete with the people around him who have scores of connections and advantages. That is until he is offered a place on the Legends Programme in 2013 and after some basic training, he is free to go about his life, albeit without forming close relationships and avoiding a digital footprint as much as possible. The assistance he receives as a result see him rise in his career over the next thirteen years until he is finally activated.
The timeline switches about a little during these early, explanatory chapters but the trajectory, from the seeds of an idea to the moment when Jamie learns he is to head first to Paris where he'll connect with the agent who is assuming his identity, before enjoying a holiday in South America, is immediately compelling. The action really begins to heat up after this, however and despite many years of successful missions with other Legends, Jamie quickly runs into trouble. When Jamie arrives at Charles de Gaulle airport, he is horrified to find the murdered body of his contact. Meanwhile, Jeremy is aghast to discover the Legends Programme itself has been compromised.
After GARNET, the agent taking on his identity, fails to show, Jamie makes a panicky but understandable decision to travel on to Tanzania, where he will have to play himself. The multi-layered plot also introduces his field handler, Nicola Ellis, an experienced agent who is alarmed when she realises the truth about Tulloch. However, he surprises her with some key information and so the opportunity to discover more about a dangerous Russian arms dealer's plans can’t be ignored.
A Reluctant Spy cleverly questions whether Jamie is a pawn in a lethal game of chess or if the risks he takes help him assert his independence after years of knowing his career had been helped and his successes not truly his. He is an engaging protagonist whose natural skills are balanced by his naivety, leading to several agonisingly as Jamie's position grows ever more perilous mean she is equally as fascinating, and the scenes which take place in London as Jeremy desperately tries to stop a terrifying conspiracy are no less nail-biting.
The sense of place throughout A Reluctant Spy is superb and David Goodman brings Tanzania and particularly Zanzibar and the highly fortified Russian compound off the coast there vividly to life. With several antagonists to contend with and a labyrinthine plot which twists and turns, this dynamic global thriller is an irresistible page-turner which never lets readers forget the potential human cost of any action undertaken by the villains, or indeed, the heroes.
Breathtakingly exciting, with characters I really cared about; A Reluctant Spy is a riveting read which left me fervently hoping for more.
A Reluctant Spy by David Goodman is published by Headline, purchasing links can be found here.
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