First Line How Can I Help You
There are important decisions in life that take up a lot of brain space like long term relationships, medical decisions, big financial decisions like buying a car house or car. For me, deciding what book to start next yesterday seemed almost as important. I began by looking at my options and narrowed things down by deciding to read a thriller. I looked at some advice in the NYTimes and elsewhere and had some options. These included
Whalefall by Daniel Kraus — something of a modern Jonah and the whale.
Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy
The Secret Hours by Mick Herron. Herron is probably best known to American audiences for his Slough House books which have been adapted as an Apple TV series.
All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby
Blaze Me a Sun by Christoffer Carlson
Ultimately, I decided to start How Can I Help You by Laura Sims. The first lines of the book are
The moment I walked through the front door, I knew. That deep, abiding quiet, and the sense that the outside world couldn’t reach me here.
Do you have a thriller or suspense book published in the last year or two you enjoyed?
Interested in fact based espionage and ungentlemanly officers and spies? Try reading Beyond Enkription. It is an enthralling unadulterated fact based autobiographical spy thriller and a super read as long as you don’t expect John le Carré’s delicate diction, sophisticated syntax and placid plots.
ReplyDeleteWhat is interesting is that this book is apparently mandatory reading in some countries’ intelligence agencies' induction programs. Why? Maybe because the book has been heralded by those who should know as “being up there with My Silent War by Kim Philby and No Other Choice by George Blake”. Maybe because Bill Fairclough (the author) deviously dissects unusual topics, for example, by using real situations relating to how much agents are kept in the dark by their spy-masters and (surprisingly) vice versa.
The action is set in 1974 about a real British accountant who worked in Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) in London, Nassau, Miami and Port au Prince. Simultaneously he unwittingly worked for MI6. In later books (when employed by Citicorp and Barclays) he knowingly worked for not only British Intelligence but also the CIA.
It’s a must read for espionage cognoscenti but do read some of the latest news articles in TheBurlingtonFiles website before plunging into Beyond Enkription. You'll soon be immersed in a whole new world which you won't want to exit.
See https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2023_06.07.php and https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2022.10.31.php.