TYPHOON [Mass Market Paperback]

CHARLES CUMMING (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 340 pages
• Publisher: MICHAEL JOSEPH; 1st edition (2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0718147367
• ISBN-13: 978-0718147365
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,503,786 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Charles Cumming is a British writer of spy fiction. He was educated at Eton College (1985-1989) and the University of Edinburgh (1990-1994), where he graduated with 1st Class Honours in English Literature. The Observer has described him as "the best of the new generation of British spy writers who are taking over where John le Carré and Len Deighton left off".

In 1995, Charles Cumming was approached for recruitment by the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). A Spy By Nature, a novel partly based on his experiences with MI6, was published in 2001. The novel's hero, Alec Milius, is a flawed loner in his early 20s who is recruited by MI6 to sell doctored research data on oil exploration in the Caspian Sea to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

In 2001, Charles Cumming moved to Madrid. His second novel, The Hidden Man (2003), tells the story of two brothers investigating the murder of their father, a former SIS officer, at the hands of the Russian mafia. The Hidden Man also examines the clandestine role played by SIS and the CIA during the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

Charles Cumming's third novel, The Spanish Game (2006), marks the return of anti-hero Alec Milius, who becomes involved in a plot by the paramilitary Basque nationalist organization ETA to bring down the Spanish government. The Spanish Game was described by The Times as one of the six finest spy novels of all time, alongside Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Funeral in Berlin and The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Typhoon, published in 2008, is a political thriller about a CIA plot to destabilise China on the eve of the Beijing Olympics. The story spans the decade from the transfer of the sovereignty of Hong Kong in 1997 to present-day Shanghai. In particular, the author highlights the plight of the Uyghur Muslim population in Xinjiang, a semi-autonomous region of The People's Republic of China. The acclaimed novelist William Boyd described Typhoon as "a wholly compelling and sophisticated spy novel - vivid and disturbing - immaculately researched and full of harrowing contemporary relevance."

In March 2008, Charles Cumming published an interactive online story, The 21 Steps, as part of a Penguin We Tell Stories project. Readers follow the protagonist's travels through Google Maps. Cumming's novels have been translated into six languages. His work is published in the United States by St Martin's Press. In 2009, Cumming left Penguin to join Harper Collins. His fifth novel, The Trinity Six, a thriller about the Cambridge spies, is published in the United States in March 2011.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Great Game, continued, September 16, 2009

By 

M. S. Butch (Katonah, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Typhoon: A Novel (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Charles Cumming's spies are engaged in an endless game of lying. All of them lie to everyone all the time, while they attempt to discern the lies in each other's statements.

Typhoon occurs in two sections, eight years apart. In the first section Joe Lennox, a junior MI6 agent living in Hong Kong just before the handover of that city to China, tries to figure out why a Chinese defector whom he was the first to interview subsequently disappeared. Although his superiors in MI6 and colleagues in the CIA tell him that the defector was a plant, and was sent back to China, Joe believes they are all lying to him.

The second section of the story picks up 8 years later, when Joe is sent by MI6 to Shanghai to spy on his old CIA frenemy, Miles Coolidge. Joe is pleased to do this because, among other things, Miles stole the Love of His (Joe's) Life, aided by some sneaky tricks.

As compared with his earlier novels, Cumming is here working with a larger canvas and at a greater distance from his characters. His focus is politics within China and between China and the West, with emphasis on the dark side of the Chinese economic miracle and the utter pointlessness of the spy game.

The story is narrated, not by Joe Lennox, but by a journalist who works part time for MI6. I think this distance dulled my concern for the characters, especially compared with Alex Milius, the hero of two other Cumming novels. While Joe is a "better" person than Alex, I didn't get close enough to Joe to develop for him the affection I have for Alex. And let's face it -- there's something "off" about a guy who still isn't over a former girlfriend after eight years.

As for the girlfriend, Isabella, being myself a woman who grew up after the '50s, I find her aimlessness annoying rather than endearing. She seems to have no interior life, no interests, and no goals. Really, I thought Joe was well rid of her.

In sum, I always look forward to the next Charles Cumming novel, but I hope it is about Alex.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars stunning and enjoyable, September 18, 2009

By 

J. Johnson "Allman Brothers obsessive" (Manassas, VA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Typhoon: A Novel (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

One of the benefits of the end of a world political system with only two major players (US/Soviet Union) is that the multitude of twisted regimes and complex relationships gives a host of new targets for writers of political thrillers to choose from. Charles Cumming's book Typhoon begins in Hong Kong at the time of the turnover to the Chinese and posits a covert operation to destablize China.

Joe Lennox is a bright young star of British Intelligence. He has the opportunity to interview a defector who is promptly snatched from him by Ameican CIA operative Miles Coolidge. Whle he's stealing the defector Coolidge also steals Lennox's girlfriend.

Flash forward 10 years. The Olympics are coming to town. The operation to destabilize China (Typhoon) has been shut down. Or has it? Lennox returns to China and ...
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The characters are well written, the action well done, the plot (post Bush) is plausable. It's well executed, put you on the edge of your seat and don't put down the book good. Highly recommend

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Timely Political Thriller, September 16, 2009

By 

Katawampas (USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Typhoon: A Novel (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

The year is 1997 and Great Britain is about to hand Hong Kong over to the Chinese government. MI6 agent Joe Lennox interrogates a Chinese defector who requests a meeting with the British Governor. The defector claims to have information the west would want to know. The next day, the defector is gone; supposedly taken back to China by the CIA because he was a Chinese spy. Typhoon is the code name for the CIA's plan for the political and economic destabilization of the People's Republic of China.

The book is very timely because a large part of the story deals with the Uighur uprising that is still going on in China today. And the bigger picture of how the events of 9/11, the neocons, Bush, Blair, Rumsfeld and Cheney connect to these uprisings.

Cumming has written a compelling story no matter your political view. It is a fictional page-turner!