Published in 1995, so 25 years old. Made me wonder about the author’s sexuality.
There are three main characters, Tim Cranmer the narrator, a wealthy middle aged semi-retired exMI5 operative, his protégé Larry Pettifer, a younger but also (enforcedly) retired MI5 double agent, and Emma, Tim’s young partner, who has been stolen by Larry.
Tim, it seemed to me, is obsessed by Larry, and Emma is a complete cipher – neither appear directly in the book but only through Tim’s recollections.
Ostensibly the book is about Ossetia just South of the Russian mainland (there is a map at the front), but only the last 30 or so pages take place there as Tim pursues Larry who has teamed up with a Russian diplomat to steal huge amounts of money to support the Ossetian rebels against Moscow.
Cranmer is quite a dull civil servant, Pettifer a wild romantic (often compared by Cranmer to Byron).
The book ends inconsequentially with Cranmer lost on Ossetia with the rebels and I think about to be caught and probably killed by the Russians in vicarious pursuit of a hopeless cause.
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