Under Cover Uncovered

'Soldier, Spy' by Tom Marcus

So, from peril in the Underworld I moved on to peril in the UK in the form of  'Soldier, Spy', memoir of former soldier and MI5 surveillance officer Tom Marcus.

'Soldier, Spy'
by Tom Marcus
(Penguin Books, 2017)

'Soldier, Spy' is a brutally, no-nonsense memoir.  After a necessarily self-sufficient childhood, Marcus joined the Army as soon as he was able, eventually becoming the youngest person selected for Special Operations in Northern Ireland.  In this role, the particular skills he'd acquired while growing up on the streets were noted by his superiors and he was recruited to MI5 soon after the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London.  He became an able but gradually more and more maverick officer, completing team operations across the country to tackle everything from international spies to home-grown terrorism.  It's a dark, dangerous and low profile business, and, eventually, a lifetime on high alert starts to take its toll on Marcus's mental health.  But in a world of half-truths and suspicions, how do you tell what's right and what's wrong?

Thunderstruck

I recently finished listening to AudioGo's 007 Reloaded version of 'Thunderball' by Ian Fleming, read by Jason Isaacs. Talk about thunderstruck!

'Thunderball' by Ian Fleming
Read by Jason Isaacs
(AudioGO, 2012)

Arch-conspirator and head of SPECTRE Ernst Stavro Blofeld has engineered the capture of two atomic weapons and has his sights set on extortion.  The UK and US governments must pay up £100 million, otherwise two unidentified locations will be destroyed and chaos will ensue.  With just one week to find the bombs and prevent worldwide disaster, M sends his top secret agent, James Bond, into battle once more...

I absolutely loved this audiobook.  It amazes me, but Fleming seems to do something different with every Bond story, as though he's constantly trying different styles and structures.  Here, for example, he juggles a lot of seemingly unconnected plotlines that are, of course, very much entwined, skillfully drip feeding their relevance to the reader at just the right moment.  So pay attention, 007!

This book is also interesting from a Bond mythos perspective.  It has a lot of background information about 007's arch-nemesis Blofeld and we get some glimpses into the more everyday life led by the jobbing secret agent.

'Thunderball' by Ian Fleming
(Penguin Modern Classics, 2004)

There is, of course, also all the standard items you'd expect in any Bond book worthy of the name; exotic location (Bahamas), feisty female lead (Domino), a villain to defeat (Emilio Largo), rich living (the super-yacht the Disco Volante).  There's also the usual sex and violence and, perhaps surprisingly, humour.  There were parts of the first few chapters that actually made me laugh aloud, not something I would've predicted!

Jason Isaacs did a fantastic job of reading 'Thunderball' and I think his contribution to how much I enjoyed this audiobook shouldn't be ignored.  I shall definitely be looking out for other work read by him in the future.

As you might be able to tell, I thoroughly enjoyed 'Thunderball' and can't wait to read/hear it again.  That will have to wait, though, as I still have a few (ahem!) more books to read first.  However, I've no doubt that this James Bond will return.

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