For example, in a highly monitored city with CCTV cameras everywhere, face masks provided an inconspicuous/normal way for the agents to blend in undetected. We follow both stories, both the present day threat (where the Coronavirus pandemic looms large in the background) and also, in flashback, Kite’s early trip to Russia during which he runs into an unfriendly KGB officer who is to feature in both tales. The second book in Charles Cumming’s gripping new thriller series surrounding BOX 88 – a covert intelligence organization that operates below the radar.

His latest novel entitled JUDAS 62 is a perfect example of this claim and stellar follow-up to last years’ BOX 88.The second book in the Box88 series takes the reader to Russia in 1993, where young Lockie Kite's task is to extract a chemical weapons specialist. This book imagines Kite has learned that both the long-ago exfiltrated scientist and Kite’s cover identity from that job are on the “JUDAS” assassination list. A Foreign Country, his sixth novel, concerning the disappearance of the first female Chief of MI6, was published in 2012. The second half, set in the present, then becomes a riveting a spy thriller that is the equal of Daniel Silva or Gerald Seymour.

Having made several working visits there, I’ve always felt that Dubai would make an excellent location for a thriller, for in real life the city is awash with intelligence officers from the West, Iran, Israel, Russia and other parts of the Middle East. Once again Charles Cumming melds Lockie's early life and career with the present to create the underlying storyline for the overarching plot. The story then flashes back to 1993, and Kite’s mission to aid in the defection of a top Russian scientist specialising in chemical weapons while posing as an English teacher in Voronezh.It’s set in Dubai, a modern-day hotbed of spies and corruption, and a playground for the filthy rich from around the world. Where freshly recruited Kite abandons his summer plans to carry out the Aranov operation at short notice. I am also not super well-versed when it comes to spy novels so perhaps my evaluation isn’t as full as it could be. Great character development and an exciting but believable plot had me hanging on what would occur with the turn of a page. Even so, Charles Cumming's prose is concise and he knows how to bring his characters to life, which makes even the slow parts become an immersive reading experience.

In the summer of 1993, Lockie arrives in Voronezh in Russia as Peter Galvin, an English Language teacher, on a dangerous mission to extract a Russian chemical weapons scientist, Yuri Aranov, and drive him to freedom in the Ukraine.Given the pacey ending though, this was a great read, and everything looks set for the next in the series. A recent addition to the list is Lockie, he is Judas 62, under the name of Peter Galvin, he has no intention of taking this lying down, and proceeds to organise a mission to Dubai, to target an old enemy from 1993, the powerful, ruthless and brutal FSB agent, Mikhail Gromik, a Putin ally, who has been responsible for many of the killings of those on the Judas List. Overall though, the positives vastly outweigh the negatives as this is a solid and exciting political thriller with very good central characters and an all too believable plot.