Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Warren Reed, For Pity Sake Publishing, $24.99.
“This book certainly captures the atmosphere of espionage operations. Its plot and characters have an authenticity that you don’t find in spy novels these days. It’s more like it really is than even the memoirs of so-called professionals.”
This commentary by Reed’s late friend Phillip Knightley, Australian-born, London-based journalist and intelligence commentator, aptly describes the spirit of Hidden Scorpion.
While the story aims to provide some insight into the life of a spy operating overseas, “rarely is it anything like what is portrayed in James Bond spy thrillers”. Explained are the three main dimensions to a spy’s life, with every era having its ogre, being elaborated on during the timeframe of the setting of this story.
Also author of the captivating real-world spy story An Elephant on Your Nose, Reed
is a former intelligence officer with the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, trained by MI6 in London. He puts this perspective on the plot.
“Any former spy who ventures to craft realistic espionage novels will draw richly on their own experience, mixing and melding all sorts of events and characters in order to convey an accurate sense of what the job is like. That’s what Hidden Scorpion attempts to do.”
Fresh back from a stint in Asia, ASIS officer Ben Johnson, is posted to Egypt to establish a spy operation. He quickly acclimatises to the sights, smells and dangers of Cairo, cultivating a local asset who almost immediately provides explosive intelligence with far-reaching ramifications for the entire Middle East.
Other foreign intelligence services want part of the action, some friendly and others, not so much. As the jockeying for position reaches fever pitch, Ben and his embassy colleague Meg, become aware that the greatest threat to their operational cover, and their lives, comes from inside the system.
Personal animosities and jealousies are on the agenda. Add to that betrayal from within which is a spy’s greatest fear especially when, for example, an “Australian spy is operating in foreign countries that are considered outside our nation’s bailiwick”.
Intricate political and moral issues are skillfully entwined to produce a deftly assembled thriller.
