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    Red to Black
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    Red to Black
    Unavailable
    Red to Black
    Ebook431 pages7 hours

    Red to Black

    By Alex Dryden

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “Red to Black has more in common with the elegantly paced books of John le Carré than it does with Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. But readers who appreciate a healthy dose of real-world worries in their spy novels won’t complain.”
    —Richmond Times-Dispatch
     
    Gorky Park for the Putin era, Red To Black by Alex Dryden could have been ripped from recent headlines. At once a spy thriller, a love story, and a chilling look at a dangerously resurgent superpower, it is a masterful work that Stephen Fry calls, “Brilliant and unforgettable….Nothing short of miraculous.” Welcome to the New Russia.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateAug 18, 2009
    ISBN9780061901102
    Unavailable
    Red to Black
    Author

    Alex Dryden

    Alex Dryden is the pseudonym of a British writer who worked for the British security services. He has had extensive first-hand experience with Russia for many years. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Red to Black and Moscow Sting. The Blind Spy is his third novel.

    Read more from Alex Dryden

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    Reviews for Red to Black

    3.5/5

    13 ratings10 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This was an average read. Putin is in charge now and the Communist "red" is being replaced by the capitalist "black". Finn is a British spy and Anna is a KGB Colonel. Anna lures Finn in a "honey trap" but the relationship actually works for them despite the complications of their lives. Finn uncovers a corrupt banking arms money scam that he tries to foil but of course it's in everyone's interests that he doesn't. The layers off corruption and the irrelevance of the truth are pure spy thriller stuff. Alex Dryden takes you into the settings both in terms of the espionage world and the European backdrop.
    • 4/5
      Alex Dryden's 'Red to Black' is a detailed account of the origin of his Anna Resnikov series, narrated by the then KGB officer as she begins the relationship with a male British spy that sets it all in motion. Can enemy spies fall in love? That seems to be the question over the first 2/3 of the book, and when finally answered things move quickly. The plot is fairly complex. Finn, the British spy, has been in place in Moscow for an extended period. The Russians successfully use a beautiful KGB agent, Anna, to get close to him to find out what or who he's working with.... not the classic 'honey trap', but nearly so. They develop a relationship, Anna dutifully reports back details to her superiors, but she's not giving them everything. In the meantime, Finn discovers a huge Putin plot against the West, but his superiors think he's gone off the rails. He 'retires' as a spy, but opts to free-lance his investigations using an assortment of characters from his past. Will Anna help, or burn him? You need to read Red to Black to find out. It's worth it. By the way, although first published in 2008, the Putin-related passages and descriptions of how Russia began to devolve from a potentially democratic country to an authoritarian regime that's almost a criminal enterprise on a grand scale couldn't be any more timely. Although it's fiction, the author has done his homework.I've unfortunately read the series in reverse order. They've all been decent and this is the best of the lot. The writing is fine but the dialogue, as I've found through the series, is uneven, though that may be related to the diverse nationalities of the characters involved. Descriptions of tradecraft seem real, which is always a bonus in espionage novels, and the characters were fleshed out very well. It's an exciting beginning to the series and explains a lot- would've been better for me to start here!
    • 4/5
      This was not the most compelling spy story I have ever read but I'm always up for a book about modern Russia. I found this to be fairly accurate in terms of location etc. My only problem was that it dragged in the middle.
    • 4/5
      A very well-written and sophisticated look at an area of national policy that remains off the radar screen: the manipulation of huge sums of moeny in secret accounts. Instead of old-fashioned war, the KGB involves itself in a decades-long plan for internal and external power which is facilitated by the rise of Putin, and by the Western powers support of "democratization" in the former Soviet Union. The leading character could have been created by Le Carre: he is so cynical that he no longer knows where lies begin and end. Yet, he is compelled to act by a sense of ethics and patriotism, and pays for his idealism by being sacked in Moscow. His counterpart, a beautiful KGB colonel, is his match and his great love. Is she working for her masters or is she too much in love? How these two individuals function in post-modern times, in an era in which the financial markets have become as powerful as nation states, is the central core, as is the interest of nations versus simple--and naive?--concepts of right and wrong . The author is somewhat pedantic, and there are passages that are dead with arcane expository language. But the overall plot is fine, and the ending is satisfying and surprising. You grow to know and care for the central characters, even if you don't know what is true and what is legend. If you are a student of both espionage and real-politik, this is a wonderfully literate and insightful work.
    • 2/5
      Just couldn't get my interest in this book. I didn't find it compelling and struggled through two spies lives who seem to love one another and work their spy networks effectively without giving anything away. Putin is rising to power while the affair goes on.
    • 2/5
      Not such a great read, although there are some things I admire about the book.I love John Le Carre's books & expected this to be somewhat like The Russia House which has a similar love story at its center, although moved forward in time. & maybe that was the root of my problem with this book - I wanted it to be as good as Le Carre & it just wasn't. It also wasn't enough of its own thing to be very enjoyable.Set in Putin's Russia, this could have been an excellent novel filled with interesting details about what Russia is about now. Unfortunately, the novel moves at a snail's pace & that pacing doesn't really work for a successful thriller. The narrator's voice is pretty muddled & the writing, while competent, just doesn't work for me. I want my spy novels & thrillers to move & this one just doesn't.The author does do a good job of beginning to flesh out a picture of Russia today. He also creates a wonderful almost film noir feel to the novel which could have reaped real dividends for him if he had taken that pulp reality to its logical pulpy end.Ultimately this is an okay spy novel that could have been a pretty good spy novel had its author been clear about what he wanted to do with it.
    • 4/5
      A timely, scary and topically current book. The main characters in this 21st century Cold War spy thriller are a female Russian KGB (now something else?) colonel -Anna-who is 'assigned' to be a 'honey pot' to a British M-16 operative- Finn- inside Russia. One is never sure until the end whether the relationship between them is real, or being feigned by one or the other to accomplish their spying on each other. We are led to believe he's trying to find out what Russia's intentions are and why they are amassing billions of western dollars in European banks. She's trying to find out the significance of what he knows, and decide whether she's in love with him or not. They're both trying to feed just enough information back to their respective bosses to keep from being fired (or killed!).Told from Anna's point of view, it does a good job of explaining what could be (and probably are?) the intentions of and inner workings of today's Russian leadership. She struggles with her belief in her country and her understanding of and (dis)trust of her country's leadership. Whether she is able to reconcile the two struggles produces a breathtaking ending.Once I got into the book, I found it was a real page turner-- to the point that I had 4 pages left to read when my plane landed, and actually sat in the airport parking lot to finish it before I left to drive home!However, I wish the beginning had been as exciting as the ending . I almost put this down at about the 35-45 page point. It was not developing into anything that sounded like a thriller. A little tighter editing, or even a different 'grabber' at the beginning might have boosted my interest earlier. It was overall a great story and one that certainly will have me following Russian vs "The West" relations more closely.
    • 4/5
      This book is one of two things. Either it is written by a man who is a good journalist but mediocre novelist, letting his book get overwhelmed by the message that Vladimir Putin is working to take over the economies and thus politics of the countries of the European Union. Alternatively, the book is written by a clever author who makes you believe the first option.The story is about Finn, a British spy, and Anna, a Russian spy. Finn is Anna's assignment, and the two fall in love. Finn is handling a high value spy, a top level associate of Putin's. Finn is desperately trying to find out Putin's "Plan", and the novel is the story of his efforts.Anna is the narrator, and we learn something of her life as the daughter of a KGB agent. She hates him, yet becomes an agent herself in an attempt to please him.The story is told at an odd remove. A lot of what happens we learn through Anna's discovering Finn's story by reading it while he is missing, and that lessens to some degree the reader's involvement in the story.Worth a read, though I won't rush out to buy this author's subsequent books.
    • 4/5
      In Red to Black, Dryden (a pseudonym for security reasons!) has posited a plot so Machiavellian in scope that reading this book at times sent chills up and down my spine. Without a total rehash of the plot, the book follows a British MI-6 agent (Finn) who receives word from a spy deep within the government of Russian president Putin that there is a plan in the works that will make the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe look like child's play. Told mainly through the view of Anna (a KGB colonel whose mission is to find out what Finn knows and how he knows, but who falls in love with Finn), the story takes the reader into an exploration of the world of greed, capitalism and power grabbing. Once I picked this book up, I could not put it down. Others have noted that they almost gave it up -- please don't! You'll miss a story just plausible enough to have you wondering if this could really happen. I thought the writing was good -- sparse enough so you're not bogged down in details but real enough to make it readable -- although I felt it probably could have been a bit shorter and we could have had less of Anna's internal conflicts. Also, the KGB didn't seem very smart at times even though they have networks upon networks of people and agents everywhere. But I think Dryden's got a winner here because a) the subject matter is pertinent to our modern world and b) it's simply a really good story. Recommended for people who enjoy good spy yarns, especially the old Cold War type novels. My thanks to Ecco Press who sent me a PDF of this book when I got in too late for galley requests, and to Amazon Vine, where I had forgotten that I'd requested this book!
    • 4/5
      Red To Black by Alex DrydenThe never ending Cold War is the theme of this book. The author paints a grim picture of Russian democracy, suggesting it is a total sham. The interaction and love between a British spy and a KGB Colonel fuel the exploration of the KGB’s domination of Russian affairs. Many times this book seemed more historic than fictional. Having taught history years and years ago, this book accurately portrayed international events. Reading easily for a historic text it was a bit dry for a novel. The characterizations were colorful and confusing. The subterfuge of the intelligence community permeated the relationships in the book. There was never any certainty as to who was friend and who was foe. I found the book more frightening than any thriller. It reeks of truth and accuracy on a topic that affects the entire population of the world. Wars are fought over economics as often as religion. The military industrial complex has characterized the U.S. over the last century. There are still many who believe the Iraq war was simply over oil. When America feels economically threatened we generally react very negatively. The author’s premise may be fictional but if the KGB did subvert the economy of the European Union armed conflict could be inevitable. This wasn’t an entertaining read as much as a thought provoking, scenario stimulating read. I recommend it but if you truly ponder the direction the author is leading to, it will make you uncomfortable.