Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Great Game, continued, September 16, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (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.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
stunning and enjoyable, September 18, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (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
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Excellent Spy Novel, September 17, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Comparisons to John le Carre's Honourable Schoolboy are impossible to avoid. The setting is China, British will is broken by China's shear mass and trust as a measure of character is no where to be found. le Carre fans, have no fear, the king is not dead, but Cummings' Typhoon is an excellent novel and sure to be enjoyed by anyone that takes pleasure in the offerings of le Carre.
Page one is set in 1997, just prior to the British empire surrendering Hong Kong to the Chinese. The main characters are Joe Lennox, an MI-6 agent, and Miles Coolidge, a hardened CIA agent. After developing the characters and setting the stage for the intrigue to come, Cummings takes us a full decade forward, just prior to the Beijing Olympics. At this moment in time, the CIA is attempting to destabilize China through the use of Islamic extremists from Turkestan. The British government is not quite aligned with this policy and Lennox's orders are to see what he can do to "politely" foil the CIA's efforts.
What first appears simple quickly becomes complex as the characters past history interferes with their ability to properly deal with the present. In excellent spy novel fashion, what appears to be so isn't and reality resides ill-defined in the shadows. An excellent novel and one I can readily recommend.
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