Book Review of Traitors by Alex Shaw

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This review is based on a free review .pdf from the publisher via NetGalley.co.uk

A fast-paced spy thriller with a charismatic (French) heroine.

This novel is set in places and involves the sort of (Ukrainian) people and politics which the author knows about and this makes it a palpable improvement on his earlier works. Those tended to be set mainly in American settings, perhaps to appeal to an American readership, and also featured highly-technological super-weapons, which are a trap for an author who does not fully comprehend the fruits of his own research. The author, wisely, approached this novel with the premise that a grenade in a modest apartment is dramatic enough.

Although this is an action thriller and the pace rarely slackens, there are layers and twists to the plot and it is a battle of minds as well as muscle. The international politics are more convincing than before (especially as this review was written the day after what the press are already calling “the Black Sea Incident”) and Russian intelligence officers are portrayed as sufficiently intelligent to hatch plots which pay off even if the heroine does her best to thwart them. And that brings us to Sophie Racine, the best thing about this book. The late, great Leslie Thomas once introduced one of his female characters with the line “you should have seen her throw a grenade” and the ability to use a grenade wisely is what sets a truly charismatic female action heroine apart from the AR-toting also-rans.

The supporting cast is mainly a British SIS officer and former SAS trooper who supplies the heroine, not with muscle (which would be superfluous) but restraint and the occasional less-violent solution, such as asking nicely. This, too, represents an improvement on the author’s previous work. At the time of the Yugoslav Civil War, when Western peacekeepers went in, it was pointed out that the hallmark of the SAS was actually subtlety and if what you wanted was an enemy base utterly pulverised, you sent in any line infantry regiment of the British Army.

Traitors by Alex Shaw is published by HQ on the 23^rd of July 2021