Book Review: Red to Black
Lincoln Journal-Star
Nov 24, 2009
Someone once said that good novels are lies that reveal the truth, and the author of this fine espionage thriller writes that fiction is a good way to get at "hidden truths."
Alex Dryden gives us a post-Cold War novel that is tense and timely. The socalled "new Russia" is run by an authoritative Vladimir Putin, former head of the KGB, now the FSB, the Russian secret police.
Although the book is fiction, the pseudonymous author is a British journalist who knows the territory and who presents us with a frightening picture of a ruthless Russia in which, as readers of the daily press will know, more than 60 journalists have been murdered in recent years.
Dryden, who calls Russia "a KGB mafia state," creates a central character, Finn, a British spy living in Moscow as a supposed trade secretary who, guided by a secret source within the Kremlin, learns of Putin's plans to take over the economic life of Europe and bring back some of the old Soviets who have been missing the totalitarian past. He is aided in his investigations by a young female KGB agent, Anna, who becomes Finn's associate.
The author presents us with a chilling and realistic plot and some well-drawn characters. Some readers will be kept up past their bedtimes.
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