Thursday, March 3, 2011

Typhoon-Charles Cumming

Typhoon
Charles Cumming
St. Martin’s Griffin, Mar 1 2011, $14.99
ISBN: 9780312654207

The year is 1997 and British M16 Agent Joe Lennox and CIA Operative Miles Coolidge are polar opposites in their personal lives and how they perform their job. Whereas Joe is a reflective introvert who sees the full cost of a scenario from all sides; Mile is a take the hill extrovert who does not give damn about costs even collateral damage to innocent people. This pair clash personally and professionally just a few months before the British leave Hong Kong to the Chinese.

Miles steals Joe’s girlfriend as the hand off of the city ends the latter’s mission. Han Chinese scholar Professor Wang Kaixuan, climbing out of the South China Sea, claims he has proof on China’s human-rights violations against the Uighur population in Xinjiang. The scholar was to work with Joe, but he vanishes. Miles takes the professor and makes him a critical element in Project Typhoon, a scheme to subvert the Chinese government. Over a decade later, M16 learns of the revival of failed Typhoon under Miles’ tutelage; Joe volunteers to learn the truth though he loathes the man who married the woman he still loves.

Typhoon is an intriguing espionage thriller in which the enemies are albeit on the same side. However, what makes this super is the chaos and personal baggage that fog professional decisions. Readers will enjoy touring China with guides Joe and Miles as Charles Cumming provides a cerebral spy thriller.

Harriet Klausner

No comments: