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The most helpful favourable review
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
UK's new spy thriller master
If John Le Carré modernized the image of the seedier image of the British Secret Service, then Cumming's new book Typhoon combines the traditional with the contemporary of the spying game. It also signifies Cumming as perhaps the most noteworthy writer to arrive since, say, Le Carré or Frederick Forsyth.
With the end of the Cold War, writers have had to...
Published 17 months ago by Mr. Michael Stotter
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0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Not good
From what I had read on Amazon I expected this book to be a good read. However, it is not. It is evident that LeCarré is the blueprint for this book. But it lacks the compexity and characterization of the master. The protagonist is dull and colourless, and at the heart of the book lies a very longwinded, boring love story. Add a plot that is sadly lacking in credibility -...
Published 13 months ago by Egill Oskar Helgason
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
UK's new spy thriller master, 2 Jun 2008
If John Le Carré modernized the image of the seedier image of the British Secret Service, then Cumming's new book Typhoon combines the traditional with the contemporary of the spying game. It also signifies Cumming as perhaps the most noteworthy writer to arrive since, say, Le Carré or Frederick Forsyth.
With the end of the Cold War, writers have had to look for other political arenas for their character to perform in. Some naturally led to confrontations with Al Qaeda or other terrorist but many have focused on the glamorous (if it can be called that) side. In Typhoon, Cumming's approaches an old "enemy" from a new angle with great sensitivity. Basically Typhoon is a political thriller about a CIA plot to destabilize China on the eve of the Beijing Olympics. British SIS are involved from the start as the novel begins at the time of the handing over sovereignty of Hong Kong and spans a decade. The novel also focuses on the plight of the Muslim inhabitants of the Xinhiang region of the People's Republic of China, and it is used as a pawn by the CIA to bring about this destablization. The question is: how can the SIS prevent this?
It is also a story of three main characters whose lives are inextricably entwined, making for a novel that's poignant without ever giving into outright happiness. You get the feeling from the outset that SIS agent Joe Lennox's relationship with Isabella is doomed from the start. Basically because if something is coveted so much, there is a price to pay. And the thorn in his side is CIA agent Miles Coolidge. It is the dynamics of these characters that drives the novel.
Cumming has a knack of description that brings the novel alive, capturing Shanghai or Hong Kong so visually you actually feel you are there. If the spy novel and the characters that people them have to change with the times to appeal to an audience with ever increasing access to information, then Charles Cumming has managed to recall why people read Greene, Ambler, Forysth, Le Carré et al. The tag-line "master of the modern spy thriller" is a deserved one.
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
Typhoon is a tour de force: topical, challenging and ultimately gripping, 10 Jul 2008
Historical novels are in vogue - not only do they transport, but they can (should?) also educate. But from the novelist's point of view, they invite great opportunities for invention and speculation since the periods they choose to inhabit are the preserve of only an educated few. Who's to know where fact ends and fiction begins?
But to take very recent history, especially very public recent history, and then weave a credible narrative through it, takes some doing. Cumming has already proved his worth in this respect in previous novels. But this book, set first in 1997 handover-Hong Kong and then in the run up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, ratchets up his ambitions. And the results couldn't be more topical. This is no private or obscure corner of history - it's a matter of wide public record and even more widespread concern.
Of course, such ambitions could merely lead to a worthy but barely gripping journalistic account. But Cummming is a master of narrative suspense and intrigue. This is truly a page-turner and therefore deserves wide readership. The characters are finely drawn and credible - the relationships and tensions acutely (even excruciatingly) observed: in particular, the triangle between MI6 protagonist Joe, CIA agent Miles and the profoundly sympathetic but tragic Isabella. But we're also taken on a whirlwind tour of Western expats in China muddling through with contradictory agendas and the seemier corners of Chinese lowlife, populated by wheeler dealers, thugs and (a very few) idealists, each drawn with skillful economy. As ever, however, in common with all great espionage writing, trust is the holy grail - and as ever in such circles it is in short supply.
But this is no airport pot-boiler - far from it. It offers an intelligent entry-point into complex affairs which rarely (if ever) make the headlines, let alone foreign affairs columns.
TYPHOON poses vital questions:
- Since 9/11, Islamic fundamentalist terrorism has obviously been at the forefront of international politics and diplomacy. But to what extent are groups like Al Qaeda the products of ill-informed, short-termist and ultimately doomed policies of covert American action? TYPHOON traces a similar trajectory - of how separatist Islamic terrorists in China wreak havoc funded by the western operatives.
- Issues of Chinese human rights abuses abound today - especially because of the Olympics. But to what extent is raising the subject mere hypocrisy? Especially if the British and American do so?
- What actually IS the role of the British secret service in a post-imperial world, especially when the CIA dwarfs its 'cousins' in resources, manpower and reach?
- Is ALL foreign policy and undercover action only really about OIL FIELDS in the end?
A chilling scene in a brilliant recent film sticks in my mind. In Syriana (George Clooney et al), a small team of frankly inept and profoundly ignorant, meddling CIA agents meets in a cocooned, air-conditioned office in Langley to plot the future of the Middle East - with absolutely disastrous consequences. TYPHOON describes a not dissimilar meeting, in Washington DC. When will we ever learn?
But don't be put off by such intellectualizing! This is a cracking read - and in a work of fiction, that in the end is the acid test. To be stimulated by such vital questions on top of that is just a fantastic bonus.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
Buy it. Just buy it !!!, 16 Jun 2008
I find that I only review books that I really like, probably because there are too many that I think that are mediocre or even truly awful. So for the few books I have reviewed I have given 5 or on the odd occasion, 4 stars. Now I find myself more than just a bit constrained by the scoring system. I need more stars !!
Because Charles Cumming is exceptional. His Alec Milius trilogy were also very fine spy novels but now with Typhoon he has produced something quite different. Typhoon is a big novel with big characters and big issues. It meets the first requirement of a thriller; it is truly gripping, often not because of breath-taking action scenes, although there are plenty of those, but simply because of the way the dialogue crackles and fizzes off the page, or the way he captures the excitement of a particular scene. Even if you have never been to Hong Kong or China you are going to feel as if you are right there.
But this is more that just a top class thriller. The author is demonstrating that he can populate a wide canvas with multiple and fascinating characters, move around the world and between decades, take on political and cultural issues, and, from this potentially complex mix, produce that most rare of things; a great novel which is also a great adventure.
We are seeing a young author just getting into his stride and, seeing the jump he has made between his third and fourth novels, well, anything is possible. So hold those comparisons ! As another reviewer says, in Charles Cumming we may have a true original.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
TERRORISM THREATS NEVER CEASE TO AMAZE, 31 Jul 2008
TERRORISM THREATS NEVER CEASE TO AMAZE
How Charles Cumming is able to write a novel encasing a dramatically complicated plot in China, Washington and Hong Kong without having spent a lifetime in situ is beyond the ken of most readers What we have to remember is that Cumming at the tender age of 37 has already got three outstandingly well written spy thrillers under his belt, the last of which revealed an in depth knowledge of the Basque Separatist movement and ETA.
It may also help to know that Cumming openly admits that at the age of 25 he was recruited by the Foreign Office and experienced some realities of what makes a `Spook'. His enormous skill as a writer comes not it would seem from his brief relationship with MI6, but from a brilliant brain and a first class education.
With TYPHOON, we are initially taken back eleven years to the handover by Governor Chris Patten of Hong Kong to China. A relatively elderly man is discovered by a British soldier on the Hong Kong shore of Starling Inlet, well into Dapeng Bay at the East of Hong Kong`s New Territories. It was fortunate that Professor Wang was unaware that in the past British Army Air Corp helicopters had routinely searched the bay for body parts of the multitude of refugees who had failed to make the swim thanks to crocodiles.
Joe Lennox of the SIS is comfortably at ease with himself concealed amongst the money seeking male dominated society of Hong Kong where he can be seen coming and going from the House of the Thousand Asseholes, in politer words Jardine House. Joe is aware of a CIA plot to destabilise China or at least a part of it - Xin Jiang the autonomous Muslim dominated region of North West China. At a Washington conference of senior CIA planners one American heavyweight former politician reveals his ignorance by commenting that he didn't think there were any Muslims in China. His assistant coughed discretely and pointed out that at the last count there were about 20 million.
As the story skips eight years and Joe is seen trolling every bar and restaurant in Shanghai and Beijing his possible would be wife, the lovely Isabella is parted from him under slightly inexplicable circumstances. Cumming displays a sensitivity in his description of a semi tragedy in the making, which had the effect of bringing this reviewer near to tears. Combining the complexities of global espionage with heart tearing romance binds the reader in such an intimate manner that it compels page turning at a hitherto unknown speed.
Cumming, the English language master, is capable of writing in the present tense, that most difficult of techniques. In TYPHOON he doesn't use it, but introduces an exceptionally cunning ploy by the super-imposition of a narrator using first person narrative and dialogue. It is mysteriously enjoyable.
A glossary of acronyms and persona would maybe make this thriller even more gripping. With the Beijing Olympics actually on the starting blocks, a huge success awaits this terrific novel.
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3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
One of a kind, 14 Jun 2008
Since seven years now, Charles Cumming has been hailed as the 'new John Le Carre'. I am thinking this is slightly unfair. Cumming is an excellent and original writer. Perhaps one day John Le Carre will be called the 'old Charles Cumming'? It would be amusing, no?!
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0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Not good, 23 Sep 2008
From what I had read on Amazon I expected this book to be a good read. However, it is not. It is evident that LeCarré is the blueprint for this book. But it lacks the compexity and characterization of the master. The protagonist is dull and colourless, and at the heart of the book lies a very longwinded, boring love story. Add a plot that is sadly lacking in credibility - and the outcome is no good. I don't think I will be reading more of Cummings in the near future.
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0 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Confused writer with implausible story, 29 Aug 2008
Not sure why certain authors continue to write as though the source of all the ills in the world today is the CIA and/or America.Worse,there seems to be a ready audience who buy these books.Latent anti-Americanism is alive and well in novels like these,and in their readership.Here we have another implausible story on many fronts.Does anyone really think that British agencies have a role to play in the secret world of spying?Most of these agencies can't even protect their own files/data and seem to regularly loose their laptops on public transport.The story here is just not credible,and plucky British spies wrestling(not with the enemy) but with the Americans is a non-starter.
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Typhoon by Charles Cumming (Hardcover - 5 Jun 2008)
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