A sharp comic novel that unpacks the evils of authoritarianism.
In Payne’s farcical adventure set in central Europe, an unremarkable fishmonger is pulled into a complex political conspiracy.
While walking by a government building one cold day, Citizen Orlov notices the sound of a ringing telephone escaping an open ground-floor window. He’s not sure if the building is inhabited by the Ministry of Intelligence or the Ministry of Security. Still, he considers it his patriotic duty to answer the phone, and the voice on the other end gives him cryptic instructions to convey to an Agent Kosek. While trying to relay the communication, he’s mistaken for an agent himself, and no one seems interested in his insistence to the contrary. He’s sent to Kufzig, where the king is making a grand ceremonial visit. While there, Orlov is shot by an unknown assailant, then forced into a plot to assassinate the king by Agent Zelle, who’s taken Agent Kosek’s place and poses as an exotic dancer. Orlov is meant to detonate a bomb to create a diversion while Agent Zelle shoots the king; the plan is to blame the murder on the People’s Front, an opposition group run by Citizen Vanev, Orlov’s partner in the fishmonger business. The author satirically chronicles the peculiar ways in which Orlov, an apolitical man who naïvely trusts the government, is suddenly drawn into a web of political intrigue. At the same time, the work shows how Orlov is thrust into a moral dilemma, as Agent Zelle orders him to spy on Vanev, his friend of many years, and threatens to harm Orlov’s mother if he refuses. In addition to humor—which is, by turns, silly and insightful—Payne provides an intelligent examination of the bureaucratic maze of modern tyranny. Moreover, Orlov’s political transformation is portrayed deftly and plausibly as he becomes a person with political passion and a chance to make a difference. Overall, this is a very funny novel in the mold of Vladimir Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading, and it’s as entertaining as it is astute.
A sharp comic novel that unpacks the evils of authoritarianism.Pub Date: May 23, 2023
ISBN: 9780744309010
Page Count: 288
Publisher: CamCat Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 29, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.
A series of mounting complications leads to yet another fight to the death between the discarded intelligence agents of Slough House and the morally bankrupt head of MI5.
As Jackson Lamb’s motley crew on Aldersgate Street struggles to cope with the deaths of River Cartwright’s grandfather and mentor, intelligence veteran David Cartwright, and their dim, beloved colleague Min Harper, new troubles are brewing. Diana Taverner, who runs the British Intelligence Service from Regent’s Park, is being blackmailed by former MP Peter Judd to do his bidding. Nothing untoward about that, of course, but this time, Judd’s demands, backed by a compromising tape recording, are more pressing than usual. So Diana reconvenes the Brains Trust—Al Hawke, Avril Potts, Daisy Wessex, and their ex-boss Charles Cornell Stamoran—whose last assignment was to serve as the contact for psychopathic IRA informant Dougie Malone while turning a blind eye to his multiple rapes and murders, which were really none of the Crown’s business. Taverner’s new assignment for the Brains Trust is the assassination of Judd. Since all these developments are filtered through the riotously cynical lens of Herron’s imagination, nothing goes as planned, and when the smoke clears, the fatalities don’t include Judd. Now that Judd knows he has as much reason to fear Taverner as she does to fear him, Lamb offers to broker a peace meeting between them which Slough House computer geek Roddy Ho will keep secret by knocking out 37 security cameras around Taverner’s dwelling. What could possibly go wrong?
The best news of all: The climax leaves the door open to further reports from the hilariously misnamed British Intelligence.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781641297264
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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