A superb novel of suspense about a Soviet secret agent
The third superb novel of suspense in a trilogy,Agent 6 concludes the story of Leo Demidov, a hero in the Great Patriotic War (as the USSR termed World War II) and later an agent in Stalin’s secret police. By way of introduction, the book opens in 1950 with Leo in thrall to the Soviet State. Joseph Stalin still rules the Kremlin and will do so for four more years as his paranoia flares into full force. But Leo operates in the lower ranks of the apparat, far from the halls of the Kremlin. He is then a senior officer in the MGB, the predecessor to the KGB and to today’s FSB. He is still a Soviet secret agent but sidelined, charged with training newly recruited agents.
A PAUL ROBESON LOOK-ALIKE ARRIVES IN MOSCOW
Jesse Austin, a world-famous African-American singer closely resembling Paul Robeson, is visiting Moscow. The internationally celebrated African-American singer will perform there and publicly extol the accomplishments of the Soviet regime as he sees them. Leo’s assignment is to help ensure that Austin is shielded from the realities of life in Moscow. In the course of this challenging assignment, Leo comes into close contact with Raisa. She’s the beautiful and brilliant young teacher with whom he has long been infatuated from afar.
AGENT 6 (LEO DEMIDOV #3) BY TOM ROB SMITH (2012) 529 PAGES ★★★★★
SHIFTING SCENES AND DRAMATIC DEVELOPMENTS
The scene shifts abruptly to 1965, with Leo and Raisa married and living in poverty with their two adopted daughters. (They were minor characters earlier in the trilogy). Raisa has persuaded Leo to leave the secret police. Meanwhile, she has risen far in the Ministry of Education. She will head a peace delegation to the USA — a student group in which she insists including her daughters. With great misgiving, Leo agrees not to stand in the way of their leaving for New York.
There, in New York, still in 1965, a tragic series of events swiftly unfolds. Raisa; her younger daughter, Elena; Jesse Austin; and a senior FBI agent named Jim Yates and all involved. Leo is frantic that he is thousands of miles away and unable to do anything. Soviet authorities deny him an exit visa. But he resolved to devote his life to unraveling the mystery behind the tragedy.
Again the scene shifts. It’s 1973, and Leo has failed again in his desperate attempts to leave the Soviet Union. He is still determined to make his way to New York to investigate the mystery.
Seven years later, in 1980, we find him in Kabul. He’s there on a dangerous assignment as punishment for attempting to flee the Soviet Union. Leo is now the longest-surviving Soviet “advisor” to Afghanistan’s Communist Party, where he is training the new Communist regime’s secret police. Here, in the shadow of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the ferocious resistance by the mujahedeen, Leo becomes embroiled in a series of violent and troubling experiences. But eventually they make it possible for him to travel to New York at last.
AT LONG LAST, UNLOCKING THE MYSTERY
In the concluding scenes of this extraordinarily compelling novel of suspense, we find Leo in New York, scrambling to unlock the mystery that has bedeviled him for a decade and a half.
Agent 6 is the conclusion of Tom Rob Smith’s Leo Demidov trilogy, which began three years earlier with Child 44, his debut novel. Child 44 was an instant success, both critically and commercially, and won numerous awards both as a thriller and as a work of literature. The Secret Speech followed in 2009. All three books are brilliant, and all can be read without reference to the others.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tom Rob Smith is a Cambridge-educated British author, screenwriter, and producer who has won multiple awards for his work. The books of the Leo Demidov trilogy have sold millions of copies. Smith was born and raised in South London in 1979, the son of a Swedish mother and an English father who were both antiques dealers. It’s difficult to understand how he could have acquired such a fine sensibility about life in Stalinist Russia, let alone in Afghanistan under Soviet occupation. Smith was born in the year the USSR invaded Afghanistan, a quarter-century after Stalin’s death. Yet Agent 6rings true throughout. He has written two subsequent novels, the second of which appeared in 2023.
FOR RELATED READING
You might also enjoy my posts:
- Top 10 mystery and thriller series
- 20 excellent standalone mysteries and thrillers
- 30 outstanding detective series from around the world
- Top 20 suspenseful detective novels
- Top 10 historical mysteries and thrillers
And you can always find my most popular reviews, and the most recent ones, on the Home Page of Mal Warwick on Books.
