Monday, May 21, 2018

My Amazon Review of David Downing's "The Dark Clouds Shining"

The Revolution Disappoints

In this final volume of the Jack McColl/Caitlin Hanley series we pick up the action in 1921, three years after they split up in Russia. McColl is sprung from jail by MI-6 (foreign intelligence) and returns to Russia to foil a MI-5 (domestic intelligence including India) plot to assassinate Gandhi. Of course he meets up with his old flame Caitlin who is working in the Women’s Bureau run by Alexandra Kollontai, a real person. Although working very hard for the revolution, Caitlin is increasingly demoralized by the course the Russian Revolution has taken. The thrill of a radically new society is turning into a police state with an omnipresent bureaucracy. This is not what she fought the revolution for.

The assassins which include McColl and Hanley’s old nemesis Aiden Brady are also disillusioned. Their goal is to kill the “Menshevik” Gandhi and with that end a Russo-British trade deal that would torpedo Lenin’s New Economic Program. Yes, the plot is a bit contorted. Along the way we meet the detective and Chekist Yuri Komarov, a well- drawn character, who is both a cynic and a supporter of the revolution. He is not a real person, but we do meet Yacov Peters, the real number two in the Cheka.

McColl and Hanley venture from Moscow to Tashkent and then on to India. In India we meet a Sherlock Holmes-like detective who adds spice to the story. At times the book is plodding, but it ends with suspense and high drama.







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