Recently my spirit for the site has been flagging. When I started I thought this site would be more interactive, people would write in the forums, I would have at least one other person writing a blog on the site, and out of all the absolute dross on the internet people would recognise my genius, take me to task on some of the political views I’ve written or stand up for le Carre and his truly awful writing or even one person would write a comment….. Instead it makes me think that my passion isn’t shared by many people out there, even though that doesn’t explain the volumes that Clancy et al sell, maybe my site is a lot of rubbish and my negativity towards some of the books are putting people off. I do get loads of comments on selling cigarettes, selling Viagra, sites where you can see hot photos of some person you never heard of or the opportunity to take part in some financial insurance scam but these spammers are just f**kwits, but at least they take the time to write. Recently some of the books I’ve read have been pretty poor, so bad that I couldn’t bring myself to write reviews – it’s not that the plots are bad, but rather it’s the writing and the feeling you get from some writers is that they are going through the motions and their lack of passion destroys the pleasure you get from reading their book. Woe is me!!

However, my faith in cold war fiction has been restored by Black Ice as it was an absolute pleasure to read, especially after reading the soap opera-ish The Company and the dour, but not bad, Armageddon. For your pleasure I’ve attached the first page

If you’ve never come to in the middle of the night to find yourself approximately halfway between New York and Moscow, right up on top of the world, standing outside a block of flats wearing nothing other than a ladies’ silk dressing-robe – and that decorated with large scarlet kisses – allow me to describe the sensation.

Confused. That’s the word, I think. Confused, and cold around the knees.

I shivered, yawned and did a few push-ups with my eyelids while I applied my brain to some basic questions: like was it night or day? That isn’t quite as easy as it sounds. In the summer, about the only way you can tell is by the life in the city. From where I was standing, outside the flats high up on Vesturbrun, the place looked like early-closing day on the Marie Celeste.

That made it night. Still.

I looked and listened. Nothing. Only, in the distance, a car chugging and spluttering. An early worker. Or, here in Reykjavik, more likely a late reveller.

I called out her name, then stood there feeling silly. Solrun isn’t the sort of name you can go round shouting, not unless you’ve strayed into one of those operas where all the women look like sixteen-stone milkmaids. In any case, my cry fell into that damp silence like a stone down a well.

Then it struck me. If this was my debut in international espionage, I wasn’t doing too well. I mean, how would it look on my c.v.? ‘On his first operation, Craven actually lost the subject of his surveillance while she was in bed with him.’ Roger Moore never seemed to have these problems.

This book was narrated with a flippancy and an irrelevancy that appealed to me. The language was of a far higher standard than most books, and I include Deighton in this, that I have read recently. Also, kudos for describing my wife:

“When I come to think about it, I’ve never actually known a woman who rushed off home to mummy in moments of emotional crisis. My wife used to rush out and spend. To her, the cheque-book was a weapon of retaliation: it gave her a strike-back capability that was awesome”. - I am safe in the knowledge that my wife doesn’t read this blog.

The book is about a journalist who has been asked by the British Foreign Office on a one time mission, to go and catch up with his ex-girlfriend the stunningly beautiful Icelandic model Solrun. Yes, pet hated cliché that she is most gorgeous woman on earth, but the story would have suffered if she looked like Kelly Osbourne or some other fat ugly woman who is famous for no apparent reason and the strength of the writing allowed me to forgive this faux par. Sohrun is caught in a political public relations war between the USA and the USSR. If she defects to the Russians, this will drive up feelings of anti-Americanism and drive them out of their strategic base in Iceland.
Solrun has went on the run and is pursued by some journalists, two mad ex-US soldiers, a charming Russian with bad taste in furniture, a novelty toilet salesman, the Icelandic Intelligence Service and a man who speaks Esperanto.
It all sounds very flippant and irrelevant, but that would not do it justice as there is a very tight plot, the main character is very well described, there is constant action and the book manages to remind us that the Cold War wasn’t fought just in Berlin or Moscow, but everywhere that held a strategic importance to one side or the other. The book builds up very nicely before an ending that is brutal and leaves you a bit shell-shocked, so very well done Mr Dunne.

Overall:
According to the book, who would win the cold war: This book leaves you know doubt that both sides are as bad as each other, and we are all pawns who get easily distracted by reading about sexy Eskies.

Explosives/fight scenes etc.. : A scalping, a Russian gets beaten up, a man freezes to death, some unsafe bungee jumping, and a geyser gets angry.

Believability of the goodies: Sam Craven, believable as an under achiever and if you believe that old adage “it’s easier to laugh a woman into bed” to explain his success with Solrun. His background and his upbringing helped explain his motives and how he reacts to situations and at no point did you feel that his actions or his thoughts were out of character.
This book was narrated by Sam (no relation to Jon of newsround) and like the Quiller books or Deightons unnamed spies, he doesn’t go into detailed backgrounds on who he meets, rather he judges them on their actions and their reactions to events.

This book is good for the soul as it allows the reader to enjoy the English language in a cold war setting and the story never let go as the plot revealed itself over the course of the book. For once I wholeheartedly agree with the quotes on the back “Crisp characters, amazing pace. every low punch in the book on target” and “Sharp, funny and stylish”

Buy it from Amazon, or you can read it online (not really recommended as you can’t enjoy a book on a monitor) at Open writing or you can read the author write about his days at The Sun at Ranters