Customer Reviews

Typhoon

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

With each novel, Charles Cumming keeps getting better. Comparisons to Le Carre and Graham Greene are accurate- can't wait for his next book. His characters are real, warts and all. This is my favourite book by him to date, though the others are excellent. In Typhoon, you can feel the texture of China and its people. If you are looking for a good summer "read"- this is it.

It all feels very real. Just as in his previous novels, the setting, the characters, the detail, flow smoothly but ever unpredictably. Twist after twist, the story is ever well written. Difficult to put down once you start reading it. Charles Cummings is the Tiger Woods of the Spy Thriller. I was left with two burning questions after reading this superb novel: when is the next one coming out and when is Hollywood putting one of his novels on the silver screen? Buy it, read it. You will not regret it.

The comparision with LeCarre on the cover of this book already gives it away - authors who need embellishments like 'The second Shakespeare' are in need of such.
The predicatbel plot allows only for limited depth of character - only the main character has some kind of personality, the others are so cliche that it is difficult to supass it: The horny American with the clean shaved head, the French beautiful lover, the socially maladjusted Englishman.
Despite the omnipresent Chinese secret service and police it seems to be surprisingly easy to give them the slip, even though a European stands out in the crowd here in China.
One also wonders why the bombing of a cinema in Shanghai should have consequences like 9/11 - hey, there were quite a number of bombings in China in 1998-2000 and nothing happened.
Living in Shanghai, I am happy to recognize many of the places mentioned, though it is surprising that the spooks seem to be mostly following the trail of package tour tourists, at least judging from the locations mentioned.
The end is as flat as can be. It is not even a John LeCarre ending, it does not leave one baffled, happy, confused but simply bored.

Charles Cumming keeps getting better. I read A Spy by Nature and The Spanish Game, and wish they'd republish The Hidden Man which is difficult to obtain.

The protagonist of this book is less an anti-hero than Alec Milius, the protagonist of the first two books I mentioned above. In fact he's likeable, smart and courageous. But like Alec, he operates in real life, makes mistakes, messes things up at times, and doesn't have magical insights. As in Cummings other books things are often not as they seem. All in all, a spy story for adults rather than teenagers. If you're looking for James Bond, this isn't it. If you're looking for intrigue this is a good book.

What a relief to read about educated Englishmen who speak fluent Mandarin and have intellects as sharp as razor blades. What was so charming about Ian Fleming's James Bond was the fact that he was 'an upper class thug' and not a Sun reader with half a GCSE who can barely do up his shoe laces, let alone a bow tie. It seems the thriller genre was taken over by the sergeants mess in the last ten years. Bring back the sophisticated, clever people who can quote Baudelaire and Balzac while they interrogate an enemy operative by clamping his balls to a car battery.
But seriously now: Cumming's view of the Chinese threat is very real and very clear despite his message being couched in the confines of the re-invented spy genre.