The Dark Clouds Shining
David Downing
ISBN: 9781616956066
Published: April, 2018
Pricing
Paperback $16.95
More books by David Downing
Description
In the series’ final installment, Jack McColl is sent to Soviet Russia, where the civil war is coming to an end. The Bolsheviks have won, but the country is in ruins. With the hopes engendered by the revolution hanging by a thread, plots and betrayals abound.
London, 1921: Ex–Secret Service spy Jack McColl is in pr...
In the series’ final installment, Jack McColl is sent to Soviet Russia, where the civil war is coming to an end. The Bolsheviks have won, but the country is in ruins. With the hopes engendered by the revolution hanging by a thread, plots and betrayals abound.
London, 1921: Ex–Secret Service spy Jack McColl is in prison serving time for assaulting a cop, so when his former boss offers him an unofficial assignment in Russia to escape jail time, McColl accepts. He will be spying on other spies, sniffing out the truth about MI5 meddling in a high-profile assassination plot. The target is someone McColl cares about and respects; the MI5 agent involved is someone he loathes. With the knowledge that he may be walking into a death trap, McColl sets out for Moscow, the scene of his last heartbreak. Little does he know that his mission will throw him back into his former lover Caitlin’s life—or that her husband will be one of the men he is trying to hunt down.
Media
“A CrimeReads Best Espionage Novel of 2018 ... "For years now, Downing’s historical espionage novels have been some of the most transporting stories around, full of finely observed everyday details that make the reader feel as though they’re at the very center of world historical events and yet also in a familiar, lived-in space.”
“[Downing] is a master at bringing the past to life through the careful and often loving observation of even minor players and through the artful deployment of specific detail. In addition, Jack McColl’s debut has a zest, an exoticism and a joie de vivre well-suited to an era when best sellers were being written by Zane Grey, suffragettes were demanding the vote, and opium parlors were a readily accessible temptation.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“[A] splendid saga of espionage during the Great War . . . Downing is a master of action . . . [He] also slips in plenty of historical reality—women’s suffrage, revolutionary hopes, progressive politics, Irish nationalism—without ever losing sight of the story.”
—The Globe and Mail
“[A] fitting conclusion to [Downing's] superior quartet of WWI-era spy thrillers... As always, Downing’s intelligently constructed characters complement a plausible and pulse-pounding plotline.”
–Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“Ending his series on a perfect tonic chord, Downing masterfully combines high adventure, Doctor Zhivago–caliber romance, and just the right amount of Graham Greene ambiguity.”
–Booklist, Starred Review
“Historical espionage fiction owes much to Downing, who translates his deep knowledge of early 20th-century geopolitics into lively and lusty adventures of the first order. Astute probing into the minds of people enduring upheaval takes this series out of the action genre and into the ambiguity of failed hopes and lost causes.”