The action crackles along nicely in the moments where the agents are able to manage their raging hormones.

S. source for Box 88, the transatlantic counterintelligence and top secret spy agency, named Saul Kaszeta is off for a four-day fishing vacation to Lake Placid in New York State’s Adirondack Mountains. In 2020, Kite learns he is on the 'JUDAS' list, a list of enemies of Russia, who are to be assassinated. Judas 62 is the second in Comings’s Box 88 series, featuring Lachlan Kite the London head of BOX 88.Nearly thirty years later Gromik has risen to the top of his profession, having taken advantage of the opportunities that post-soviet Russia had to offer and is enjoying the high life in Dubai. The Russians are again a key part of the story and the narrative brings them to the central plot and the reader into their operation and plans.

The second half, set in the present, then becomes a riveting a spy thriller that is the equal of Daniel Silva or Gerald Seymour. He had been Russian, and had defected to the West during the Cold War, taking his expertise and insights with him. In 1995, Charles Cumming was approached for recruitment by the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). Cumming exploits these tawdry charms with complete authenticity, while drawing the story to a rich, tense climax, in which the outcome seems uncertain until almost the final page.Charles Cumming gives us a thrilling sequel to Box 88, a covert Anglo-American intelligence agency, giving us a dual time narrative that allows us to compare and contrast the inexperienced naive, but confident and quick thinking Lachlan 'Lockie' Kite in 1993, an Edinburgh student in a relationship with Martha that runs into problems which has him wanting space, and the present day Lockie, now the Head of Box 88, operating in a world now where spycraft has changed considerably. A Foreign Country, his sixth novel, concerning the disappearance of the first female Chief of MI6, was published in 2012. The first novel in this series, Box 88, saw the introduction of Lachlan Kite and his recruitment into the joint MI6/CIA organisation known as Box 88. A sequel, entitled A Colder War, in which Kell investigates a traitor inside western intelligence, was published in 2014.

There is a good feel here too for the heat and the pressure, and this operation is short, over a few days, rather than some weeks as in the earlier one. I had to chuckle at this relatable tidbit: “a recycling bucket marked ‘supposedly saving the planet. The latter part follows a protracted follow-up job in the present day, set in UAE, but it’s all rather dull and over-explained. The novel flashes back 1993 when Kite used the Peter Galvin identity in an operation in Russia, to bring out Yuri Aranov a leading biological warfare scientist. If talk of temperature-taking, mask-wearing, social-distancing, limited-capacity restaurants, etc is a trigger for you— you might not want to read this one.The modern day part of the story plays well on current affairs referencing recent Russian tactics with poisonings, criminal behaviour and intelligence organisation tactics. They succeed, but the escape is a harrowing one and on their tail the entire time is a brutal and very suspicious member of the KGB/FSK by the name of Gromik. Bit of a Curates Egg as the first half is excellent as the story of a young Lachlan trying to spirit a disaffected scientist out of Russia is gripping. The Hidden Man also examines the clandestine role played by SIS and the CIA during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. It’s also complex/hard-to-follow because of the larger cast of characters, dual timelines, political nuances, and UK cultural references.

The inclusion of unecessary details occasionally detracts from the pacing of the plot somewhat but still an entertaining read. My fear now is that Cumming will stick to this structure in subsequent books, doing a back-and-forwards at least until we get to the bit in Lockie's life story where we learn how/why/when he broke up with Martha.The second book in Charles Cumming's gripping new thriller series surrounding BOX 88 - a covert intelligence organization that operates below the radar. The current day plot , culminating in Dubai, referenced the recent Russian crimes in Salisbury and elsewhere eg the cases of Navalny , Lutvinenko . There would be ‘collateral damage’ along the way and young Lachlan Kite would somehow have to get used to it. More disturbingly still for Kite is that a former alias of his, Peter Galvin, has also been placed is on the list as JUDAS 62. The second installment in the Box 88 series is a gripping, well-written spy thriller with plenty of twists and turns.