February 2019 books

A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal by Ben Macintyre
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I think ultimately there is actually LESS to Kim Philby than meets the eye, which makes Macintyre's work all the more impressive. He has spun quite the tale here, spanning decades and helpfully moored to a specific friendship between Philby and another MI6 agent. The first half dragged a bit (something I felt about Zig Zag as well), but the second half was riveting and dinner tonight wasn't served until almost 7pm because of it.

There is a generous sense of time and place in this book, with every backdrop painted vividly - none more so than the final scenes in Beirut. And I was relieved to find that the book was extremely self-aware when it came to the pervasive "boy's club" attitude all these crusty old British spies had: "well, his father and I were together at Eton/Cambridge, how could he possibly be a traitor?!?!?" repeated every few years as strange events raised doubts about his allegiance. These strange events included facilitating the escape of not one but TWO other spies as well as admitting to MI6's face that he had been secretly married to an Austrian communist for YEARS. And yet: "I knew his father at Eton/Cambridge, so." It's tiresome and maddening and the book thankfully knows exactly what's going on.

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Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw by Mark Bowden
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 stars. Very thorough and the last half flew by. Still, this was essentially a story I already knew the ending to. Bowden is of course able to punch it up but there's only so much he could do.

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The Hollow of Fear by Sherry Thomas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this one, probably even more than the second book! Lord Ingram makes for an excellent Victorian-era Mysterious Loner Dude - all loaded silences and meaningful glances and gazing out of windows. And the cast of characters surrounding Charlotte is always interesting. I was weirdly touched by Treadles' storyline in this book - I saw it coming from a mile away and still got all kinds of warm fuzzies about it.

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King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5 stars.

I was a little bit puzzled by this one - I love every single one of Bardugo's books that I've read, and Nikolai is one of my favorite characters, so it was weird to be reading this book and...not be into it? Then I started wondering if this book began life as one of those interstitial novellas that are A Thing these days and someone told her to bump it up to its own duology and it all made sense. I don't know if that is exactly what is going on here, but it would explain a lot: the hitting of emotional beats almost by rote, the highlighting of secondary (and even tertiary) (and even previously completely UNKNOWN) characters from previous works, the retreading/rewriting of previous events, and the padding out of some relatively thin plot lines.

But ultimately I was glad to be hanging out with these characters again even if some of the more padded stretches of the book were less than compelling. There was some surprisingly moving stuff here, too, and I will definitely read book two.

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