Cumming is an excellent writer, and has a superb sense of dramatic tension, but in A Foreign Country – unlike some of his other novels – this reviewer was left with the feeling that he has not quite got the balance right, that the novel was a little rushed in its production, perhaps under pressure of a publishing deal. Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival. Spy thrillers work best if they leave the reader guessing for at least half of the book while trying to piece together strands that are clearly connected – it’s just not clear how. Kell had forgotten how much he disliked Nice. The city had none of the character that he associated with France: it felt like a place with no history, a city that had never suffered. The too-clean streets, the incongruous palm trees, the poseurs on the boardwalks, and the girls who weren’t quite pretty: Nice was an antiseptic playground for rich foreigners who didn’t have the imagination to spend their money properly. ‘The place,’ he muttered to himself, remembering the old joke, ‘where suntans go to die.’”

It's delicious in placements. France, Egypt, England, Tunasia and more. I especially loved the narrations from different individuals upon the various French cities "feel". So pretentious and also IMHO- fairly dated and inaccurate. But it's brutal on occasion. Far more than just in the descriptive sense. Considering the body counts, I thought it rather droll that Kell is supposedly in a quiver over waterboarding! How self-rationalizing are humans! If none of the following countries are foreign for you, take a glance at a map of the world and challenge yourself to identify places that you would categorize as foreign countries. Take the activity one step further by planning a trip to a foreign country on your list and experience the culture of that place for yourself someday. And the game IS being an expert on lies. Lies and waiting. Spies lie. And wait. Intelligence agents make lawyers look straight forward and in definitions honest. They also on more than average occasions keep prime motivations as relative to themselves and their own inklings as they so desire and also critically undercut each other. Not at all unusual to do both at the same time. And just a bit less to their own hierarchies too. Duplicitous. The population of Andorra is about 77,054 people, according to the most recent census taken in 2019. With a population of less than seventy-eight thousand people, Andorra accounts for below 0.001% of the global population today. As the two hundred and third largest country in the world based on population alone, Andorra ranks lower than some parts of the world that are dependencies or territories, meaning Andorra is by far one of the smallest countries on Earth.

Spies, of course, struggle with the idea of loyalty more than the rest of us do. Most of us might have to struggle to choose between two friends who are divorcing. Who is my better friend? Who deserves my support the most? We don’t generally have to think about our loyalty to our country or ever have it really tested. Here in the United States, it is always interesting to me when someone expresses loyalty to their state over that of the federal government, as if the issues surrounding the Civil War still linger in the minds of those descended from those who fought over states rights. Loyalty to a state is a nebulous idea for me. State lines, arbitrarily drawn at some point in history, don’t really have importance to me. Of course, it is hard for me to see myself as loyal to the United States by dint of my birth. I like to think of myself as a citizen of the world who just happens to live in the United States.

Finding her requires Kell to reactivate dormant skills, but finding her is only the beginning of the story. Now he has to figure out what she is up to and navigate the murky waters of those arrayed against her before they not only ruin her career but hinder his own best chance to… come in from the cold. The first sentence was well-written; "Jean-Marc Daumal awoke to the din of the call to prayer and to the sound of his children weeping."

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As you can see we dial the US exit code 011, followed by Brazil’s country code 55, then Sao Paolo’s area code 11, and then the local number 2345-6789. It’s that simple. The country of Andorra is located on the continent of Europe. Andorra is officially known by two other titles -- the Principality of Andorra, and the Principality of the Valleys of Andorra. The two longer names for this European country do not roll off the tongue with as much ease, however, so the nation is simply called Andorra in casual conversation. As the sixth smallest place on the European continent, Andorra is only one hundred eighty-one square miles in total area. The country's capital is a city called Andorra la Vella.