The Scarlet Papers: ‘The best spy novel of the year’ SUNDAY TIMES

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World War Two events were never going to be clear cut or clean. Wartime was nasty, trust was not automatically given, there were double agents, triple agents and the intelligence services were ruthless in their endeavours. The book is full of characters with messy relationships and exposes the moral dilemmas which spies confront, the isolation inherent in their role and the burden of keeping secrets, even from those you love. As one character observes, 'We were good spies and terrible human beings.' Many of the characters are almost certainly not who they purport to be or are adept at adopting different personas. 'Spying was a performance and the costume, the voice, the initial entrance were as vital as the lines themselves.' At 42, Dr Max Archer is an Associate Professor of Intelligence History at LSE. Having published 2 books which were not very successful, his career has stalled. Meanwhile he sees his peers having successful careers and financial stability. To add to his misery, his lawyer wife has petitioned him for a divorce, leaving him homeless and in debt. And there's the first problem. If this was just your standard two-viewpoint, twin-timeline narrative, that would be fine. But the memoir is written like fiction (for unconvincing reasons). As fiction, it reads well, but as a supposedly non-fiction genre inserted, mise-en-abyme style into the other narrative, it doesn't really work.

Thanks to Matthew and NetGalley for allowing me to read The Scarlet Papers before the publication date. I enjoy spy books, but I haven’t read anything by Matthew Richardson before and I am pleased to say that I enjoyed this. Dr Max Archer is a frustrated wannabe spy and Associate Professor of Intelligence History at LSE. Having been turned down by the intelligence services at university, he has written books on Philby and double agents. However, his career has stalled, he has failed to make full professorship and his wife of twenty-one years has left him and having kept the house, is pregnant by another man. Scarlett has written her memoirs in a notebook, that is securely hidden, but these details have to be verified before a publisher will give a final commitment to take on this task. LONDON, THE PRESENT DAY: A British academic on the run with the chance to solve one of history's greatest mysteries This was a thoroughly enjoyable book with many twists and turns which have the reader engaged and questioning the truth throughout.Moving from the end of the Second World War, through the Cold War to the present day, it conjures up the murky world of secret agents, double agents, sleepers and moles. References to real life individuals such as Kim Philby, James Jesus Angleton and Maurice Oldfield (reputed to be one of the models for John le Carré's George Smiley), along with figures in the world of espionage from more modern times, give it an air of authenticity. (As can be seen from the bibliography, the author's research has been extensive.) And although the story is fictional, many of the elements seem completely plausible. Worryingly so, if you believe in the reality of a secret state. And it wasn't so long ago that the existence of someone very like one of the main characters in the story was revealed, after many years in the shadows. The premise of The Scarlet Papers is that a (modern day) professor of Cold War history at the LSE is approached by a mysterious figure who promises him 'treasure' in the form of a personal memoir of 'the last undiscovered Cold War double agent'. It's this memoir that forms the second narrative thread of this book, starting in 1946 and covering the next 70 years, not in fine detail but stopping off in 1964, 1992, and 2010. The professor protagonist is a bit of a cliché: bitter, broke, divorcing; the memoirist (more forgivably, perhaps) isn't particularly convincing, either. The Scarlet Papers has received from endorsements from Peter James, who praised it as a “breathtaking thriller” and a “classic in the making”. So dreadful in so many ways, a wish-fulfilment novel about a wannabe spy drawn into Hollywood version of espionage. The plot, which involves several giant coincidences, might have worked as a parody…and the dialogue is ridiculous when it tries to be clever.

Superbly constructed and written with flair. This might be the best spy novel of the year' SUNDAY TIMES There were times, during my reading of this novel, that I was as confused as I ever wanted to be! A brilliant spy novel, full of authentic details, names that are still familiar to the majority of people even now, and so many twists and red herrings, no one tells the whole truth. Superbly constructed and written with flair ... this might be the best spy novel of the year Superbly constructed in an elaborate twisty spy yarn. It's highly unlikely that there will be a better espionage novel this yearAnd so begins a chase - For the manuscript. One side eager to publish. The other just as eager to spike. As well as that, we learn the content of said manuscript which is a spy thriller's dream. Can Archer stay one step ahead and get the job done... So the twists and turns, when they arrive, are the result of withholding information rather than inserting disinformation. There's just another chapter in which something else is revealed that we weren't told about earlier. There are good interrogation descriptions, which leave the reader quite breathless at the speed of questions and answers. The research is intense and detailed, with actual names and events to add verisimilitude to this story. The ending is astounding, will make you take a sharp intake of breath, there was not a hint of this throughout the book. Astonishing . The narrative moves between the present and a number of time periods and locations in post WWII Europe; weaving together aspects of Scarlet King’s long career in MI6 and her involvement in various Cold War intelligence operations.