A Loyal Traitor – Tim Glister
Duty or honour. Which would you betray?
It’s 1966. London is swinging, and the Cold War is spiralling.
Clear cut lines have faded to grey areas. Whispers of conspiracies are everywhere. Spies on both sides of the iron curtain are running in circles, chasing constant plots and counterplots. And MI5 agent Richard Knox is tired of all of it.
But when Abey Bennett, his CIA comrade in arms, appears in London with a ghost from Knox’s past and a terrifying warning that could change the balance of power in the Cold War for good, he has to fight to save the future.
He must also face an agonising choice: who will he believe, and who will he betray – his duty to his country or his loyalty to his friends?
I received a review copy from the publishers through Netgalley. My thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Blog Tours for the opportunity to join this tour.
I don’t read many spy thrillers these days as I found too many of them were becoming tales of dry, political manoeuvres with clever writing but not much by way of thrills. But A Loyal Traitor may well bring me back to books about the Cold War as this is an exciting, engaging and exceedingly well told story which I absolutely loved.
Tim Glister takes us inside MI5 where lead character Richard Knox works. Knox will cross paths with CIA agent Abey Bennett who appears in London in the company of someone Knox never expected to see again who will thrust Knox and Bennett into a high stakes adventure.
On the opposing side there are deadly threats being dispatched with an unknown mission to keep the readers guessing. A prototype Russian submarine is lurking off the English coastline. The Brits are aware there is something out there but they don’t appear able to get a good trace on it – the Ghost Submarine is causing real concern to MI5. Also a deadly assissin is making their way around Europe, taking out people identified as threats to Russia and the KGB agents. Both sides in this covert conflict are brilliantly represented and the readers get to see how West and East are moving their players around the story. You never quite know what’s going to unfold but Tim Glister makes it clear everything is building up to an explosive conclusion – it really didn’t disappoint.
The characters feel very much like they could just step off the page from the 1960s and the authenticity they bring to the blog story got me very invested in their success (and hope they survive the experience).
A Loyal Traitor is wonderfully paced, never felt unlikely or had me suspending disbelief which really helped my immersion in the story. More of these would be very welcome.
A Loyal Traitor is published by Point Blank/Oneworld Publications and is available from today in hardback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/a-loyal-traitor/tim-glister/9780861541669